


california king bed

by strong



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Blow Job, Comedy, Daddy Kink, Fingering, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Ziam, Riding, also lots of zouis, i got excited with the smut tags, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 10:55:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1507958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strong/pseuds/strong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Well, Louis, what else would you like in this smoothie then?" Harry asks, nonchalantly laying his hand down to lean on the table and, in the process, nearly knocking over a display of apples. </i><br/> <br/><i>"Smooth," Louis crosses his arms and grins at Harry as he scrambles to hold the apples still before they all roll out of the basket. </i></p><p>  <i>Once Harry's sure that they're all set in place, he turns back to Louis and blinks his eyes, pulling his lips in for a smile that Louis thinks looks like a frog before saying, "Pretend that didn't happen. And ha! A smooth guy to help you with your smooth-ie."</i></p><p>(louis designs shoes, falls in love too easily, and decides he wants to make a smoothie</p><p>harry works at a fruit stand, has a butterfly tattoo on his stomach, and ends up giving louis more than he was looking for)</p>
            </blockquote>





	california king bed

**Author's Note:**

> First, I'd like to say that the title is not a reference to the Rihanna song.
> 
> Second, I don't know much about fruit stands or how Vans operates within their company, but I did do a bunch of research so I hope that shows at least a little bit in this.
> 
> There might be some minor grammar mistakes since I typed most of it on my phone, but if you catch anything big just feel free to comment and I'll fix it as soon as possible.
> 
> Also, I'd like to give a VERY special thanks to Ellie (lovedyoufirst on ao3) for betaing this and writing the first smut scene since I was too wimpy to! Go read her stuff after this.

Maybe it's the fact that his roommate Zayn has put girly smelling candles all around their apartment, or maybe even that Zayn’s boyfriend Liam has been drinking weird pink protein shakes whenever he comes around lately, but Louis wants a smoothie. He doesn't want to go buy one from a smoothie shop though because he's too stubborn and would rather make it the way he wants with his own Louis Tomlinson certified quality fruits in it.

On his way to the local grocery market for fruit, Louis drives by a normally vacant section of the parking lot in front the mall that he notices now has a sign in the corner with **FRUIT 4 SALE! :)** written on it in big, red letters. He nearly causes a car accident when he makes the last minute decision to sharply turn into the lot, blaming it on the smiley face for winning him over. Or maybe it's the fact that he's lived in California his whole life and has never seen a fruit stand before.

As he drives more cautiously around the lot he sees a red tent with a few cars and people lingering around it and figures that's probably where he needs to go. He parks a decent distance away from everyone else so that he can be sure that he won't have to worry about being able to see around the car beside him while backing up; it's a recurring problem for him due to his smallness for his age. Louis grabs his phone and wallet out of the car's cup holder before pressing the lock button on his door and stepping out into the gloomy looking but nice August air; at least nice for this state at this time of the year.

As he approaches the tent, he can't help but be wowed by the wide variety of colorful fruits lined neatly in large baskets on a few plastic tables. Other people must be interested too because they're touching and examining every piece which sort of makes Louis want to slap them because they're lowering the LT certified qualities of the fruits. Luckily no one is near the strawberries so he goes there first, ready to sift through them all to find the best ones for his drink.

Of course, he never really thought about how he'd be able to tell which fruits are the best, so he's just trying to find the largest ones figuring _the bigger the better, right_? He's got a handful of strawberries when there's a tap on his shoulder that makes him jump and nearly drop all of his prized jewels- well, you know, not _those_ prized jewels.

"Hi, would you like a bag while you shop?" A deep, cheerful voice asks behind him. Louis turns around to see who it's coming from and nearly drops the berries again because the voice-owner is fucking gorgeous to say the least.

The well-tanned boy has dark curly hair pushed back with a headband, bright green eyes, and a jawline that Louis thinks he could cut a frozen ham with. He's also got a tall and lean body underneath his outfit choice of a neon orange tank top, light jean shorts rolled just above his knee, and flip flops that match the color of his shirt (which makes Louis laugh because this boy clearly attempted, and succeeded, to make such an already sloppy looking outfit match.)  Louis can't deny that he looks pretty damn good in it, though.

"Yeah that'd be helpful so that no more headband-wearing guys scare me half to death and make me drop what I'm holding," Louis breathes out only half sarcastically. He takes the mesh bag held in front of him and dumps what he's holding into it.

"You mean there's other headband-wearing guys around here? I thought I was special," the boy sighs and sticks his bottom lip out and all Louis wants to do is touch it with his thumb or his tongue, either would be fine.

"Well, at least you're probably the only one who works at a fruit stand- wait, you do work here right?"

"Nah, I just have a side hobby of moseying around fruit stands and handing bags out to boys who apparently _really_ like strawberries," the boy, who Louis sadly still doesn't know that name of, shrugs and changes his frown to a smirk.

"I don't 'really like strawberries' I just don't know how many I need in my smoothie. But maybe you can help me with that.." Louis draws out the last word and waits for the boy to catch on that he's asking for his name.

"Oh, I'm Harry. And you are-"

"Louis," he cuts in, smiling big enough to show off his sharp canine teeth.

"Well, _Louis_ , what else would you like in this smoothie then?" Harry asks, nonchalantly laying his hand down to lean on the table and, in the process, nearly knocking over a display of apples.

"Smooth," Louis crosses his arms and grins at Harry as he scrambles to hold the apples still before they all roll out of the basket.

Once Harry's sure that they're all set in place, he turns back to Louis and blinks his eyes, pulling his lips in for a smile that Louis thinks looks like a frog before saying, "Pretend that didn't happen. And ha! A _smooth_ guy to help you with your _smooth_ -ie."

Louis can't help but chuckle at the terrible pun- if it can even be considered one. Apparently Harry's jokes don't appeal to most people though, because when he sees Louis laugh, the corners of his mouth turn up and his eyes shine bright like a cliche kid in a candy store.

"Uh, so what kind of smoothie were you wanting?" Harry clears his throat and asks Louis curiously.

Louis didn't really know what kind of smoothie he wanted in the first place, actually. He figured that he could just buy a bunch of fruit and throw it all together in a blender with high hopes that it wouldn't make him nauseous.

"Maybe you could help me with that too? You seem like a person who's smart in this.. subject." He glances up at Harry and throws a sheepish look on his face.

"Ah, but of course I can help you with that!" Harry exclaims cheerfully, clapping his hands together once. "Now, do you prefer a subtle fruit flavor or something more tropical?"

"Tropical sounds interesting," Louis figures.

He watches as Harry nods his head and sets his eyebrows together, wandering off to another table for the ingredients, Louis presumes. He also can't help but stare at the way Harry walks, all loose limbs and long strides even though he's only going a short distance.

It only takes a moment of standing and looking around aimlessly for Harry to come back with his tattooed arms full of kiwis and bananas.

He gives Louis a wide smile, "I think I got everything."

It's starting to lightly drizzle now, so there's only one or two people lingering around the tent. Harry leads the way to yet another table where a blonde boy is standing behind a register, casually scrolling through his phone until he notices the two of them walk up.

"Hey, Harry, think this might be the last customer of the day cus the sky’s looking pretty dark now,” the blonde says, making a gun with his hand and pretending to shoot at the sky.

“Now Niall, shooting things doesn’t help anything,” Harry scolds. He drops all of the fruits on the table and watches as the boy, Niall, types some numbers in on the cash register.

"Yeah, yeah so who's this?" He looks up between Harry and Louis with a raised eyebrow.

"This," Harry throws his arm around Louis' shoulders, "is Louis, and he likes strawberries!"

"Just because I was holding lots of strawberries doesn't mean I have some sort of fetish for them, god," Louis groans. Across from him Niall let's out a cackle.

"I like him," he says to Harry with a wink, receiving a glare that Louis nearly misses. "And your total is gonna be nine to the penny."

Niall places the fruit in a bag with 'thank you' written on it a few times as Louis pulls out a ten dollar bill and slides it across the table. The rain isn't letting up around them, and at this point all of the shoppers have driven away, leaving only the three of them standing there.

Louis takes the bag and dollar change and says a quiet thank you before turning to go back to his car. A voice calls out to him though just before he starts running through the rain.

“Please come back again!” It’s a deep voice, obviously belonging to the curly haired boy, so Louis looks back.

“I definitely will,” he says with a bright smile. The smile on Harry’s face reflects his same brightness and he waves once more before he turns around to talk with Niall.

Louis glowers at the rain pouring onto the parking lot’s pavement before taking a step out into it and making a beeline towards his car. He gets there soon enough but when he reaches down into his pocket for his keys he feels nothing there. On instant reflex he reaches out to check the door handle and - of course - it’s locked.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He’s getting soaked, as is the bag, and he doesn’t know what to do. Zayn would have to bring him his keys but it would take a few minutes and Louis needs to get under something dry.

Glancing back at the tent where Harry and Niall are busy placing tarps over the fruit he lets out a deep sigh - he’s either going to have to stand out by his car and get sopping wet or he’s going to have to embarrass himself by asking to stand under their tent. His foot squishes in his shoe when he takes a step forward and he knows that he can’t wait out here, so he internally groans and sets back towards his previous location.

As he gets closer, he steps in a huge puddle that splashes halfway up his legs and let’s out a loud groan, which causes Harry to snap his head up from where he was bent down to pick something up. The taller boy instantly stops what he’s doing and stands up, heading over towards Louis as soon as he realizes who it is.

“Well I asked you to come back, but I didn’t think it’d be so soon,” Harry grins, but dropping it from his face when Louis glares up at him.

“Shut up and let me just stand under here until my friend picks me up,” Louis orders. Then he realizes he should probably text Zayn and ask him to actually come get him.

“And why exactly do you need the protection of my lovely tent?” Harry asks sarcastically trying to hold back a grin.

Louis breaks the glare and looks to the side, still trying to hold a mad look on his face but feeling more embarrassed overall. “Because I locked my fucking keys in the car, alright.”

“Mm, I see. Well, you can just do whatever until your friend gets here I guess.”

Louis bites his lip and nods his head, setting the now heavy bag of fruit on a dry spot of the ground so he can pull out his phone from his pocket. He sends a quick text to Zayn with lot of smileys in it because Louis knows that he’s at Liam’s right now and there’s a good chance that they’re doing the do right now.

His phone dings in his hand and he looks down to see the message:

_ur a fucking idiot_

And another below it:

_where are u??_

He smiles triumphantly at the response and types out the address- well, location - that he’s at at the moment, then clicks out of his messages to mess around with some other apps on his phone that he’s never found a good enough chance to use.

It’s a few minutes of scrolling through his Instagram feed before there’s a body standing beside him and he rolls his eyes up to see none other than Harry standing there with a plain look on his face for once. Louis was starting to think that the boy’s face just naturally formed into a smile all the time.

“Do you wanna sit in my car?” Harry asks. Louis looks up and thinks about it, but Harry quickly sees his reluctance. “I’ll let you pick the radio station.”

“Won’t I get your seats all wet?”

“Eh, I don’t care much. I’m sure I’ve spilt things much worse on them.” He starts smiling again and Louis wants to roll his eyes but instead he just agrees and picks up his bag, following the curls to, surprisingly, a Range Rover. _That was unexpected_ , Louis thinks.

Harry proves himself to be quite a gentleman, opening the passenger door for Louis as he slips inside, carefully avoiding splashing water around. He closes the door and walks around to the other side, climbing in and turning the car on. The air conditioner blows on Louis and it makes goosebumps appear on his skin when the cool air hits the water covering his body. Harry notices and quickly reaches forward to turn it off, giving a slightly apologetic look to Louis who just laughs lightly and says thanks.

The radio is already set on the local pop station, giving no need for Louis to change it, so they both sit there silently beside each other, sometimes humming along to the overplayed songs blaring through the speakers. The volume is turned up louder than usual too, to semi-drown out the sounds of the rain that's now pelting hard against the roof and windows. After a few songs, the opening beats to a certain song start playing and Louis and Harry both groan then look at each other. Harry slowly starts smirking at Louis and reaches out again to turn the volume up a bit before singing along to the opening verse.

“I threw a wish in the well, don’t ask me I’ll never tell,” he sings along with Carly, gesturing for Louis to sing the next part and frowning when he shakes his head no. “Come on, at _least_ sing the chorus with me, Lou.”

The nickname is what gets him, he thinks, because as soon as he hears _where do you think you’re going baby_ he belts out the lyrics that everyone on the planet has known since summer 2012.

“Hey I just met you,” Louis sings. “And this is crazy.”

“But here’s my number, so call me maybe.” As he says the lyrics, Harry acts out handing a piece of paper to Louis and holding his hand up to his ear in the shape of a phone.

“It’s hard to look right at you baby, but here’s my number, so call me maybe.” Louis reenacts the movements Harry performed before and they both crack up and start laughing so hard that they miss the next part.

“We’re such losers,” Harry says as he comes down from his laughing high. It makes Louis a bit sad because Harry’s laugh is really cute and _when did he start thinking laughs were cute_.

“No, actually you're the only loser here."

"Oh, so were you not just singing Call Me Maybe with me?" Harry asks, challenging him.

"I was but only because you practically held a gun to my head and forced me to," he states simply. Harry just stares at him.

"You're a drama queen," he says after a moment and Louis reaches over to lightly smack his bicep.

"I am not!" He knows he is though. Actually, he's been told that he's melodramatic, a drama queen, an over exaggerater, and a princess. He denies all of them other than princess where he merely corrects that he's only to be referred to as a prince or king.

“Whatever you say,” Harry says, raising his hand up in defence.

Before Louis can reply anything else, his phone is ringing in his pocket and he'll admit it startles him a bit. He knows who it is though without even having to check the caller ID.

"Bro I'm at this place. Where the hell are you?" Louis looks over and sees a red Camaro slowly driving around the lot with a dark haired driver talking on the phone as they squint to see out in the rain.

"I'm in the range rover, just park beside it," he orders bluntly before hanging up without a second thought.

Harry looks away just as Louis turns his head to him, making it painfully obvious that he was in fact staring at Louis.

"See something you like, yeah?" Louis teases with a smile. It only grows wider when the boy's face heats up and he stutters out an explanation.

"No, I uh, why would I do-" He's cut off by a horn blaring right outside of the widow and curses as he jumps forward.

"Never mind," Louis says with a soft laugh, "and that'd be my friend Zayn coming to retrieve me. Such a lovely boy."

"Oh so I let you sit in my car and pick the radio station and you don't call _me_ a lovely boy? How rude of you, Louis."

They both grin at each other for another moment, just sitting in silence until there’s another honk outside and Louis pounds on the window to tell him to shut up. Zayn is very impatient, despite his calm and normally relaxed personality.

“Thanks, though. For saving me from melting in the rain,” Louis offers with an appreciative tone to his voice.

Harry smiles and shakes his head back and forth. “No problem. If I ever need someone to sit in my car with me and sing along to the radio again I’ll be sure to call you.”

“Ah,” Louis starts, narrowing his eyes, “but you don’t have my number.”

“Well I was hoping..” Harry looks down with a bashful look on his face and starts the cliche draw-a-circle-on-your-leg-with-one-finger thing. “Maybe you’d give it to me?”

He looks up with a disappointed expression when Louis says a long “uh” and scratches the back of his neck.

“Oh, I mean if you don’t want to that’s totally fine! I didn’t mean to make this all awkward and stuff, I just thought- nevermind. I’m rambling sorry, uh.” Harry starts sputtering out words without much thought and Louis wants to pinch his cheeks until they turn bright pink.

“Hey, hey, calm down. I was joking,” Louis says. He reaches across to put his hand on Harry’s shoulder and gently laughs, watching Harry’s expression turn confused. He sighs, “Do you have a pen? Sharpie?”

Harry snaps out of his daze and nods his head, roaming his hands around the car for a moment before finding a pink Sharpie resting in one of the front cupholders. He hands it to Louis with no explanation as to why it’s pink and waits a moment before Louis grabs his arm and flips it over to the side that’s smooth.

Louis scribbles out his phone number across Harry’s fore arm unreasonably large and signs it with a smiley face. He caps the marker and hands it back to Harry as the boy tries to twist his head and arm odd directions to read the numbers - Louis will gladly admit that his hand writing is extremely boyish looking and simply messy.

“Zayn’s probably going to kill me now, but text me okay?” Louis winks at Harry as he opens the door and reaches down to pick up his bag of fruit from the car’s floor.

“Yeah, of course. Have a good afternoon,” Harry states with a smitten smile and waves as Louis steps out of the car.

“You too, curly!” Louis gives one final smile and slams the door shut, quickly opening the passenger side to Zayn’s car and throwing himself along with the bag in as quickly as possible in attempt to avoid getting wet.

“Have to finish up a blowjob, did you?” Zayn asks, his voice not specifically annoyed but hinting that Louis shouldn’t do anything dumb to push him.

“Nah, just giving him my number in case of _future_ blows,” Louis breathes out, slumping back into the seat as Zayn surges forward.

“Ah so it’s a him,” Zayn notes, looking over to smirk at Louis. “What’s this guy’s name then?”

“Harry. He works at the fruit stand, tent, whatever thing.” Louis waves his hand around and slaps it back down to his thigh.

“And why exactly were you there anyways? You never eat fruit.”

“Didn’t realize I was walking into an interrogation.” Louis says stubbornly.

“Just answer the question you knob.”

“I was trying to find Louis Tomlinson certified quality fruit to put in a smoothie because I’ve been wanting one and I don’t trust smoothie places. You never know what they might be putting in those blenders,” he explains making Zayn let out a huff from his nose.

“You don’t know what they’re putting in McDonald’s food either, mate, but you still eat it religiously,” Zayn teases. Louis just scoffs in response.

“It’s not the same, Zayn.”

“It’s exactly the same.”

“They don’t put the chicken nuggets in a blender!” Louis exclaims, throwing his arms out to the sides and nearly hitting Zayn in the face.

“No, but you don’t see what they put in them at the factories where they’re actually made, now do you.” Zayn quirks an eyebrow up and glances over to Louis who’s extremely confused.

“They don’t-”

“No,” Zayn interjects, “they don’t make any of the food fresh at the restaurant. How are you twenty two and don’t know these simple facts?”

“I’m not a lifeless loser like you. I don’t read up on McDonald’s news,” Louis defends. He eyes Zayn and watches as the boy rolls his eyes and slightly shakes his head. “I love you.”

Zayn sighs and lets the corner of his mouth turn upwards, “Yeah, love you too.”

And that’s how their relationship works. They banter over ridiculous subjects and fight and mess with each other but in the end they always end up saying they love each other and laughing it all off like nothing ever happened. Louis is glad he has a Zayn in his life, he’s not sure that he’d still be alive if it weren’t for his best friend’s common sense and persuasive words when Louis tries to do something he hasn’t thought through.

"By the way how were you planning on getting you car back from that place?"

Louis just bats his eyelashes in response.

-

The next weekend Louis finds himself at the tent from before, only now it’s sunny outside and he’s got an actual reason for being there. He flips the sun visor down and checks his hair in the mirror, making sure it’s perfectly pushed back and curls only a little into the side of his face.

Once he’s sure he looks good, Louis makes sure to grab his keys and steps out of the car, slamming the door behind him and sauntering right up to a table where he sees a tall brunette boy straightening out a basket of apples.

He clears his throat when he’s close enough to be heard and the person snaps their head up to look over at him. Louis can see the recognition dawn over his face.

“Louis, didn’t think you’d be back so soon! Need more fruit already?” Harry asks, wiping his hands on his black skinny jeans rather than on the apron across his front.

"Actually, I just came here to, uh, ask if you want to come to mine and have a taste of the smoothie I made?" He asks hesitantly.

“You could have just texted me you know?” And that’s when Louis remembers that yes, he could have just texted Harry considering they were talking a bit last night already. “Or you could have just brought a cup with you here.”

Shit, he’s an idiot.

“Well too late now,” Louis smiles sheepishly and shrugs one shoulder. They both have to step out of the way of a woman who glares at them as she tries to reach around for an apple.

“I’ll come over though if the invitation is still good,” Harry offers. “I can’t right now because I have to work the stand, but I close up at six today if that’s good?”

It’s a little later than Louis was hoping for but he’s still excited none the less. “Yeah, that’s fine! I can just text you my address and whatnot and just come on up whenever you get there.”

Harry reaches a hand up to rub at his opposite bicep, “Alright, awesome. Now I have to get back to work if you aren’t buying anything, but I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Yep, later,” Louis confirms and he smiles as Harry quickly waves before turning around to help an older woman who’s just addressed him.

Louis is a bit mad and disappointed that Harry can’t come over sooner because now the anxiety is gonna kill him for another few hours and that’s not good. He doesn’t even know why he’s so anxious considering he’s never like this with other guys, but he doesn’t think about it too much and instead dreads the tingling feeling in his stomach. _It’s like little caterpillars,_ he thinks to himself, _not butterflies yet, but still something enough to cause the uncomfortable squirmy feeling in your stomach._

-

At half past six there’s a knock on Louis’ front door while he’s peeing and he curses, trying to push out his pee faster so Harry doesn’t think he’s got the wrong place or something. As soon as he’s finished he runs out of the bathroom and to the front door, buttoning his pants back up just as he turns the knob to open the door.

“Hello, welcome to Casa De Tomlikson,” Louis greets, pulling the door wider and gesturing for Harry to come inside. “By the way, Tomlikson is me and Zayn’s last names mixed together. We’re very creative.”

Harry - now wearing a multicolored plaid flannel over his original white shirt - notes that the name mix is clever and steps forward, examining the living room in front of him and the kitchen/dining area to his left. His eyes stop on one particular piece of furniture sitting in the corner of the living room beside the television.

“Is that a Spider-Man statue?” Harry asks carefully, not seeming particularly interested in it but still a bit taken aback by it being in Louis’ flat.

“Sure is,” Louis boats proudly as he locks the front door again and walks forward to where Harry is standing . Every time anyone comes over he's sure to show off and brag about it to make whoever's over jealous- sadly Harry said something before Louis could get the chance to do any of that though.

“Ok, well then are you rich or summit, because that thing looks pretty expensive,” Harry notes glancing down (because Louis is at least a full two inches shorter than him) at Louis with both eyebrows raised.

“Oh, well I just work as a hooker on weeknights and it adds up," Louis shrugs casually, obviously joking. Harry stares at him with his eyebrows still raised though and Louis literally cannot believe how oblivious this boy is to sarcasm. “I’m kidding Harry, I design Vans shoes and it pays pretty good money considering I’ve been doing it for a few years and my designs are actually manufactured a lot. In fact, I designed the Spiderman edition Marvel vans, which is why I bought the statue. That sounded really cocky, but eh; I’m not sorry.” Louis is a dick.

"Huh, well that’s cool,” Harry says before popping his lips. (Interesting thing for Louis to note down on the positive side of his Harry Book: _doesn’t mind cockiness_.) “Much cooler than working at a fruit stand and part time at an ice cream shop, that is.”

The last part catches Louis’ attention and for a brief moment he thinks back to the conversation him and Zayn had in the car some days earlier. He almost asks Harry if they put anything nasty in milkshakes when they make them but he decides against it, wanting to make himself seem like a decent, normal human being rather than a cocky, paranoid asshole.

“Yeah, so do you want a smoothie?” 'Blunt' is the route often taken by Louis.

But of course Harry nods his head yes and smiles big enough to make his dimples appear and seeing him do that distracts Louis causing him to back up into the kitchen counter, yelling out when his hip hits the corner. He glares at Harry when he starts laughing and the boy closes his mouth, still letting out heavy breaths through his nose as Louis turns back around. After that slight incident it only takes a few minutes for Louis to pull out two glass cups and fill them with the tropical smoothie he ended up making a few days ago rather than the day he actually bought the fruit.

He hands one of the glasses to Harry and they move to go sit on the comfy leather couch, Louis grabbing the remote and flicking the tv on to something interesting about how candy is made. They sit there quietly for a while, just sipping their smoothies and humming in interest when a scene comes on showing how jelly donuts are filled or how laffy taffy is pulled. In the time that they sit on the couch too, it seems like they gravitated towards each other because in the beginning they were sitting on near opposite ends but now there’s only a little space between them in the middle of the couch.

During a commercial break Louis decides to break the silence, glancing over at Harry who is tilting the glass above his head to get the last little bit to come down.

“So how are my smoothie making skills?” He asks, patiently waiting for Harry to finish drinking before he can respond.

Harry gives a thumbs up and sets the glass down on his thigh with a refreshing “ahh” and a slight grin. “I think my fruit is what made it so delicious honestly.”

“Ohh I see I’m not the only cocky one here,” Louis teases, leaning to the side a bit to knock his knee into Harry’s. When he does this though, Harry’s cheeks flush pink and there they are - the caterpillars from before are definitely now butterflies and Louis wishes he could rip his stomach open and shoo them out.

Then he notices the pink line above Harry’s lip and curses the gods for making this boy so god damn adorable.

“I’m not cocky, but I do need to pee,” Harry says even though those things don't relate to each other at all. He stands up, setting the glass on the coffee table, and stretches his arms out.

“That didn’t really make sense and when you get in the bathroom - which is down the hall and to the right - you might want to check the girly facial hair you’re growing there,” Louis advises him, receiving a confused look in response.

He watches as Harry walks off and hits his stomach to make the butterflies go away when Harry accidentally walks into a closet. Eventually Harry finds the bathroom and Louis hears him groan “oh god” when he presumably discovers his smoothie mustache in the mirror.

“Do you think he likes me?” Louis directs to the Spiderman Statue, trying to gage a reaction from the solid figure. This is something he does a lot, so much that Zayn’s basically gotten used to it by now. Sometimes he’ll come home and see Louis holding out two shirts in front of the figure or asking how his day has been but he always just smiles softly and continues onto his room, careful not to bother the in-depth conversation Louis is having with the statue.

“No man, I think he might only be here because he thinks I have a strawberry fetish like him,” Louis mopes, slumping forward to rest his chin in the palm of his hand. “Or maybe I’m just being paranoid, I tend to do that a lot. Did Zayn tell you about the McDonald’s incident?”

A cough from the other side of the room has Louis sitting up and snapping his head around. To no surprise he sees Harry leaning against the wall staring at him with a - well, kind of a dopey look on his face, like the one you’d see in a cartoon where the character grows giant beating hearts for eyes. Whether Harry seems to be amused or not, Louis is still embarrassed and tries to play it off cool like he was just talking to himself or something of the sorts.

“Were you just talking to Spider-Man?” Harry asks, making his way back over to the couch and plopping down closer to Louis than he was before.

“Well,” Louis starts, suddenly internally freaking out because he realizes he doesn’t know how much Harry heard of the one-sided conversation, “no, I was uh- no. Actually yes. Yeah I was.” Smooth.

Harry chuckles and _there’s the dimples again, fuck fuck fuck_. “Cute.”

No, Louis refuses to be called cute. He isn’t. He doesn’t have dimples or big doe eyes or a cute laugh, he just has sharp manly features and other manly stuff.

“Talking to inanimate objects isn’t cute, trust me. I’m not cute,” Louis states defensively, shaking his head and slumping back into the couch and throwing one arm across his chest to hold onto his bicep; a position he’s in a lot. Interesting.

“Oh quiet you, you’re very cute,” Harry insists. He scoots over closer to Louis and slumps back beside him, turning his face so that it’s right next to Louis’ and starts poking at Louis’ cheek. By reflex Louis reaches up to swat his hand away but he can’t help but give up and start laughing a little when Harry begins poking all over from his nose to the freckles on his forehead and cheek.

“You should know that every time your dimple appears now I’m going to poke at it whether you want me to or not,” Louis hums thoughtfully.

Harry finally lowers his hand but doesn’t turn his face away when he answers, “I know I’m cute, so poke away.”

Louis turns his head now, not even realizing how close Harry is until their noses are almost touching and he can feel Harry’s breath on his face. His head is telling him to just lean forward, close the space and kiss him or do _something_ , but of course the moment only lasts a second before Louis panics and sits up, clearing his throat awkwardly. Harry follows shortly after but doesn’t seem anywhere near as distraught as Louis is. He seems sort of like he’s in a haze, a lopsided smile set on his lips and his eyelids drooping down the slightest bit.

“So, this was fun,” Louis offers slowly, trying not to blurt out something like _“This was fun we almost kissed do you like me I think I like you please date me and fuck me I love you sorry that might have been too forward but you’re just really hot”._

“It was,” Harry agrees more coherently now. “Thanks for the smoothie, Lou.”

 _He’s already leaving_ Louis sighs mentally. “No problem, dimples. Be sure to come back for more Louis Tomlinson certified quality smoothies, and also remember to text me.”

“Wait, what exactly makes a smoothie ‘Louis Tomlinson certified quality’?” Harry asks curiously.

“Anything that I pick out by hand is LT certified quality, whether it be fruit or a shower curtain,” he shrugs like it’s one of the most obvious things in the world.

“Oh, okay well yeah, I’ll be sure to text you.” Harry stands up and Louis does the same, both of them shuffling over to the front door one behind the other.

Harry pauses for a moment and turns around like he’s expecting some sort of formal goodbye but Louis doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do so he sticks his hand out for a handshake, receiving a wary glance from the taller boy. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do so he puts his hand back down and scratches his thigh until there’s a body moving towards him and suddenly there’s heat all around him. He sort of freezes because he’s not used to getting hugged unless he’s visiting his mom and sisters or Zayn is proud of him for cleaning the flat or doing the laundry.

In time Louis warms up, though, and lifts his arms up to wrap them back around Harry loosely so that it doesn’t seem too intimate but doesn’t seem like he’s uncomfortable either. After a minute they break apart and wave each other goodnight as Harry walks out the door. Just as Louis is going into his room to change into some pajamas hs phone dings and he lifts it up to check who it is. He smirks when he sees fruity harry on the lock screen and types in his code to read the message.

 _From **fruity harry** :_ _You should come to Sweet Scoops next Wednesday if you aren’t working.. I think there’s going to be half priced cones for cute boys who talk to statues.._

Reading that, Louis immediately holds his phone to his chest and jumps stomach first onto his bed, screaming into the pillow and kicking his feet against the mattress like a teenage girl a few times before collecting himself again and responding to the message.

 _To **fruity harry** :_ _cool :)_

-

“Zayn I’m in love what do I do,” Louis sighs dramatically with his head resting in Zayn’s lap as the rest of his body lays out over the rest of the couch. It’s Sunday night and Louis is driving himself mad with how much he’s been thinking about last night.

“Why don’t you stop being so melodramatic and ask Spider-Man what to do,” Zayn replies, continuing to scroll through his Instagram feed with his arm resting on Louis’ head.

“Hey, I don’t give you shit when I hear you calling Liam ‘daddy’ at night, so you can’t say anything about that,” Louis huffs and knocks his head down onto his friend’s crotch.

Zayn’s eyes widen for two reasons and he slaps Louis but still doesn’t remove him from his lap. “You’re such a little shit."

"You flatter me, Malik," Louis drones, "Now tell me what to do."

The phone above his head clicks off and he hears a sigh. "What am I supposed to say?"

Louis rolls his eyes so far back that he thinks he can see the inside of his head. "You're my best friend so you're supposed to say something like _'No Louis you aren't in love. You just met this guy a week ago and, although you're one of the hottest guys I've ever seen, he probably doesn't even like you that much anyways._ "

Either Zayn misses the self compliment Louis threw in or he just ignores it because he simply shrugs his shoulders. "See, you don’t even need my help.”

“But I _do_ ,” Louis pouts. “Tell me whether Harry loves me or not.”

“Lou,” Zayn says, his eyes wide and serious, “you just said you met him a week ago, how is he going to be in love with you? How are you even supposedly in love with _him_?”

Louis thinks for a moment before looking up at Zayn with an innocent look on his face and humming something in his closed mouth that sounds like “I don’t know”. He knows that it's completely irrational to think that they could be in love with each other, but Louis is desperate and his head isn't screwed on straight and those are factors leading to a great big mess of melodramatic-ness and groaning.

The conversation doesn't continue any further because before either of them can say anything else, there's a knock on the front door and Louis is being lifted up and dropped back down onto the couch, listening to wet kissing sounds with a disgusted frown on his face. _You'd think he'd have more respect for my emotional state_ , Louis thinks to himself. Instead of sitting back up he slings his legs upward and over the back of the couch, twisting his body sideways so that he hangs upside down over the edge of the cushions.

All of the blood in his body quickly rushes to his head and to Louis it feels better than the twisty feeling in his gut- like his stomach is on the teacup ride at Disneyworld. He closes his eyes and relaxes until someone pokes him sharply in the stomach and he's curling upwards and rolling off the couch onto the furry black rug that resides on the floor of their living room.

"Your face was starting to look like a cherry," Liam chimes, reaching a hand down to help Louis up and recoiling it offended when Louis snacks him.

He's a nice guy and makes Zayn happy and sure, that makes Louis happy too, but he also stole Louis' best friend, leaving him with no more constant source of attention to feed off of. In simpler terms, attention is Louis' oxygen and Liam is slowly pulling on the cord to his air tank, so now he's shakily straddling the borderline of semi-friend and worst enemy.

"My face color is none of your buisness," Louis remarks. He then stands and stalks over to the kitchen with a huff, making sure to take note of - and feel only a slight bit guilty for - the pout and sad eyes contrasting on Liam's strong looking face.

He hops up on the kitchen counter, disregarding the bar stools like he normally does when he sits watching Zayn make food on the rare days that they do actually eat a real prepared meal. Liam and Zayn are cuddled into each other on the couch probably talking about how odd Louis is. Well, it wouldn't be surprising if they were, that is.

_To **fruity harry** : youre my new best friend_

Louis types the message without much thought before he clicks send, watching the little bubble below the contact name fill up blue until it makes a swoosh noise to signify that it went through.

The message says it's even read almost immediately after it's sent, but Louis then is waiting for over a minute and there's still no reply. He starts to wonder if that was too forward; maybe Harry doesn't like Louis at all and he misinterpreted everything. Or what if he actually read the message and then got hurt that Louis is calling him just a friend rather than flirting or something. No, Louis is sure that-

Ding.

He reads the screen quickly and figuratively wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

 _From **fruity harry** :_ _Whoa don't you think we're moving a bit fast??_

Louis bites back a smile and then just as quickly realizes that he doesn't have to do that considering the fact that no one is watching him (bummer). So he lets himself grin widely at Harry's dumb and cheesy yet somehow hilarious response. In reality it's probably only hilarious to Louis because he's definitely in love with Harry, but details, details.

_To **fruity harry** : so you don’t want to be my best friend ?? im gonna cry :’(_

_From **fruity harry** : Well normally I don’t want to make out with my best friends. So.._

Louis doesn’t even bother replying to that and instead let’s his eyes widen as he loudly says “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”

A voice calls out from the living room asking him what’s the matter so he laughs maniacally and jumps off the counter, scurrying over to the couch and jumping onto Liam’s lap receiving a glare from Zayn. He holds his phone up close to the jealous boy’s face and points to the message, still holding a tight lipped smile on his face.

“Why are you so excited over that?” Zayn asks with a bored voice. Louis looks at him like he’s crazy until he apparently catches on and puts a shocked look on his face. “Oh, yeah of course! This means he _loves_ you Louis, how great!”

He says it with an extremely sarcastic tone but Louis is just glad to have the support and squirms around on Liam’s lap, probably making him a little uncomfortable. “I know! I can’t believe you tried to convince me that he didn’t love me earlier.”

Zayn drops the shocked look and raises his arm up harshly in confusion but then just let’s it drop, not even willing to bother with arguing about how Louis actually tried to convince _himself_ that. Eventually Louis gets pushed off of Liam and he hums happily as if to show that Zayn can’t bring his mood down now. He runs down the hall and into his bedroom, falling backwards onto the middle of the bed and pulling out his phone to hold it above his face.

_To **fruity harry** : never heard of friends with benefits then ?? ;)_

After that message they unfold into banter over the rules of friends with benefits and somehow even manage to get into the topic of who the best Kardashian is (though Louis puts up a fight in saying that he should be able to pick Scott because he’s apart of the family and Harry quickly gives up, knowing that Louis will win the argument anyways.) The whole night is fun and Louis wishes he could go back in time and kiss Harry just to get it out of the way already but that’s impossible so he decides he can at least torture himself for a little while longer.

-

A week and a half later, Louis is sitting in his small office at the Vans headquarters trying to come up with some new designs for his deadline at the end of the week. He hasn’t got any ideas of what to draw so he pulls out his phone, hoping maybe Instagram can jog the gears in his mind.

As soon as he clicks his phone on though, he sees he has a new message from Harry and he tries to think of how he didn’t hear it when it came through. _If I was working that hard I must really need a break,_ he thinks to himself before shaking his head and opening up the message.

_From **fruity harry** : In case you forgot, there’s an ice cream special today for cute boys who.. well, I forgot what I said the first time but you should come up here. :)_

_From **fruity harry** : Not saying you have to though. Just a suggestion.._

It seems like someone up there is looking out for him because he was just thinking about taking a break and now here’s this perfect opportunity that includes seeing Harry and it all just _works_. He types out a cheeky reply with a winky face and clicks off his phone and shoves it in his front pocket. He closes the sketch book on his desk, placing it into the Marvel backpack sitting beside him before he stands up and leaves for his “lunch break” (even though he technically already took one; no one cares very much at this place).

The drive to the shop doesn’t take very long and before Louis knows it he’s pulling up to the corner of a strip mall where a sign above him reads Sweet Scoops in swirly, pink neon letters. It’s not too busy considering it’s midday on a Wednesday, but it also comes to prove that this ‘special sale’ is really what Louis expected: a lame excuse for Harry to get Louis to come see him again.

He walks in the door, noting the jingling bell that chimes when it opens, and instantly spots Harry to the left behind the front counter handing a cup of ice cream to a little girl in a pink tutu. The sight is adorable but doesn’t last long before Harry looks up and smiles brightly, walking behind the counter further to where Louis still stands in the front of the shop.

“You came,” Harry says cheerfully. He pushes the floral scarf in his hair further down on his head and smooths out the front of his hot pink t-shirt with **“I may be sweet, but our ice cream is sweeter!”** written on the front of it.

“Yeah, I needed a break anyways and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to come get some ice cream,” Louis replies casually. He moves closer to the counter, leaning on the clear glass above the different ice cream tubs before letting out a shocked noise in his throat and removing his arm from the freezing cold glass.

“Oh, so you didn’t want to see me?” Harry pouts, sticking his already thick bottom lip out further and making his eyes wide. Fuck he’s adorable.

“Nah,” Louis teases, “not really.. Ok, yes I wanted to see you.”

As soon as he says that he notices Harry grin at him, giving a knowing look and it makes Louis' face heat up embarrassingly. Nothing else is said though until Harry jokes that he'll kick Louis out if he doesn't order anything and Louis makes a teasing remark about how he'd just like to take Harry home with him, with maybe two scoops of chocolate chip mint and double fudge in a cone on the side.

He waits patiently in front of the counter watching and scrutinizing Harry as he scoops the ice cream into a chocolate dipped cone ( _"That scoop isn't big enough, man up and use those arm muscles."_ ) It doesn't take long for Louis to have the dripping treat in his hand, desperately trying to pull his wallet out with the other free one. He manages it and Harry sadly confirms that there really isn't a sale and that he's sorry for lying.

"You should've known that I would've came just to see you but no, you've got to come up with this deliberate lie!" Louis scoffs, pointing at Harry and licking his ice cream. "I'm ashamed of you."

Harry shrugs. "Just wanted to be safe."

He then holds up a finger and turns around, pulling a sprinkled cone from the stack sitting behind him. He looks over the tubs of ice cream for a minute then smiles as he scoops up some from the tubs of bubblegum and cookies 'n cream, plopping them both in the cone.

As if by clockwork, a petite girl with her ombre hair up in a ponytail walks through the door, the same shirt as Harry’s covering her thin torso. She looks up between him and Louis and winks at Harry, laughing when he nudges her side as she walks past him behind the counter.

"Let's sit outside," Harry says, quickly coming around to the front where Louis is.

Louis wants to question how he's just taking the ice cream without paying but it doesn't seem like it’d be a big deal to anyone else so he lets it go and nods, following Harry out the door and hearing the jingle after them. Harry leads them to a table sitting in front of the main window right beside the front door. It's black and metal and has two similar chairs on either side of it, each having a hot pink cushion on the seat.

They sit down across from each other and Louis is still licking at his cone trying to make it to where it can't drop anymore over the side because his fingers are getting too sticky now. Harry waits patiently, licking at his own cone until Louis is capable of holding it without any dripping onto his pants.

"You've got.." Harry chuckles, waving one finger in a circle at Louis' face. "It's all in your stubble."

"Fuck," Louis groans, pulling a napkin from the dispenser conveniently sitting on the table. He wipes at his mouth and hums at how much comes off, turning the white cloth brown with chocolate.

"I'll admit it was probably a bad idea to sit out here with ice cream comes, but it's a nice day so it's worth getting a little cream on your face, yeah," Harry says nonchalantly, looking around. Louis nearly chokes at the last part though, thinking of all the things that the statement could be a sexual innuendo for.

"Yeah." It's all Louis can think to say because if he tries anything else he might accidentally blurt out something that was supposed to be kept exclusively in his head, like _"Yeah and by the way, I actually want_ your _cream on my face"_.

It’s quiet for a little bit as they just sit there minding themselves until it starts to feel a little uncomfortable and Louis is glad Harry feels it too. “So..” Harry starts slowly, “how’s work going?”

“Well, I can’t seem to think of any new designs and it’s quite frustrating, honestly,” Louis sighs. He takes an extra long lick at his ice cream to show his sadness and pretends not to notice Harry staring at his lips as he does so. Lately he’s noticed Harry staring at his lips a lot, and by lately he means from  the time since he walked into the shop to now. “You basically saved me from some sort of mental crash earlier with this invite.”

“Glad I could help,” Harry smiles proudly and then it slowly fades like he’s deep in thought about something. He snaps out of it quick enough though and Louis decides not to question it.

“So, Harry,” Louis mimics the other boy’s question from earlier, “how’s business at the fruit tent?”

Harry chuckles a bit at Louis’ phrasing, “It’s called a fruit stand and it’s doing great, actually. We’ve just put more tropical fruits out for sale and people love them. So maybe I should thank you too for inspiring me with that smoothie you wanted.”

“Eh, I didn’t help anything, people just think you’re cute so they keep coming back for more,” Louis teases. He smiles when he glances up at Harry because his eyes are looking down and he’s got a dopey grin on his face, his cheeks tinted pink.

A few minutes later both of their cones are now nearly completely melted and Louis himself doesn’t like the cone so he just sits there holding it on the table, talking with Harry as the boy finishes the last few bites of the waffle part. They tease each other some more and Louis doesn’t want to admit it but he has a feeling that there were more caterpillars in his stomach than he had originally suspected because now there’s at least a hundred butterflies flying around, making him internally frustrated.

“Lou,” Harry says suddenly, picking at a napkin and snapping Louis from his thoughts, “would you, uh. Well, I know we’ve only known each other for like two weeks or so and I mean, we text and stuff so this shouldn’t seem too rushed. At least I hope it isn’t-”

“ _Harry_ ,” Louis says softly, rolling his hand in a forward gesture as if to say come on already.

“Sorry, sorry, I was going to ask..,” he pauses for a second and looks up at Louis with a hopeful glint in his eye, “would you go on a date with me?”

Louis wants to scream. Not only because _this is really happening_ but because the butterflies are now having a rave party or jumping on a trampoline or something that’s making his head malfunction. It takes him another second to realize that Harry is sitting in front of him waiting for an answer and he doesn’t want to seem like he actually had to think about the question.

“Yeah, of course,” he says like it’s obvious and the smile that grows on Harry’s face shows that it must not have been as obvious as it seemed.

“That’s- wow, that’s awesome.” Harry looks awed and has to shake his head to calm down. “So I was thinking we could do a dinner date? I could cook for us at my place and we could just, like, watch movies and talk and whatnot?”

And that sounds fucking sick. “That sounds fu- great. That sounds great,” Louis catches himself.

“Ok, I’ll just text you the details later and, yeah. As you said, great.” Harry’s sort of stumbling around the words and it’s so cute that Louis thinks he might pass out.

“I think we both have to get back to work now but I’m looking forward to seeing you again,” Louis says as he stands up and throws the cone in the garbage a few feet away. Harry follows short after and nods, the small smile never leaving his face even for a second.

“Me too. Bye Lou,” Harry calls and waves to him, making his way into the shop as Louis starts backing up towards his car.

“Bye, sweetcheeks,” he winks and then turns around, not bothering to look back at Harry’s reaction to the statement.

(Actually, he does turn around and stifles a laugh when he watches Harry run into the glass door. The boy holds a hand to his forehead and shakes his head slowly and Louis has the slightest proud feeling in his chest knowing that he somehow made Harry run into a door by just saying two simple words.)

-

That night, Louis stays up binge watching seasons one and two of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, trying to keep himself entertained while he waits for Zayn to come home from his dj gig at some new high end club a few blocks away. He’s in the middle of a scene where Kim is accusing Kourtney of being a jealous bitch when the door finally opens and the strong scent of alcohol and sweat suddenly fills the room.

He waits again as Zayn goes into his room to change into some pajamas until there’s a lump sitting beside him on the couch, trying to nudge his way under the comforter Louis’s got wrapped around himself.

“Long night, was it?” Louis asks, lifting the blankets up over them both, looking over at Zayn’s tired face.

“Yeah, never been to such a hyped up place in my life, honestly,” Zayn sighs, “But everyone seemed to liked my mixes so it was cool.”

“Mm,” Louis hums. He starts moving his hand and feet with anticipation and Zayn must notice because he asks Louis to “tell me what you want to say already cus I know you get all fucking squirmy when you’re anxious about something.” Him and Louis have been friends for too long, it’s no fair.

“Ok, ok, well basically..” Louis pauses for a dramatic effect but cuts it short when Zayn glares at him, “Harry asked me on a _date_! I’ve managed not to weird him out yet, isn’t it just wonderful?”

Now, as much as Zayn likes to act like he couldn’t care less about Louis’ odd love life, he really can’t help but widen his eyes and smile when Louis tells him the news because hey, he likes seeing his best friend happy as opposed to the times when Louis is beat up over a breakup.

“Oh Lou, that’s sick man,” he says, wrapping an arm around Louis and squeezing his side under the blanket.

“I know and I- I just can’t believe he really, truly likes me, you know? Like, normally by now I’d have said something fucking weird like told him I’m in love with him or asked some dumb question that would scare him off, but I haven’t and I have a date now!” Louis is beaming of happiness so much that he can’t even bother to think about all of his past failed relationships that all ended from things related to what he mentioned before. (Minus the time him and Zayn dated; it didn’t last longer than a month because it was odd and they both agreed that it was much better just being friends and occasionally making out if they felt like it.)

“Well, I hope it all works out for you. You deserve it,” Zayn assures him and ruffles Louis’ hair.

“Thanks bro, I love you lots,” Louis says, leaning his head into Zayn’s touch and yawning. “Gonna head off to bed now I think; wassit like two or three in the morning now?”

“Love you too and yeah, about half past three actually,” Zayn says, yawning as if Louis passed it on to him.

“God, I don’t see how you do this like three times a week,” Louis shakes his head and stands up, taking the comforter with him since it’s from his bed.

Zayn shrugs, “Get used to it. G’night, Lou.”

“Mgh, night Zaynie,” Louis says with half closed eyes and a soft smile. It’s incredible how quickly the happy hype came and left him, leaving drowsiness in it’s place.

The walk to his room couldn’t take any longer and by the time he finally reaches his bed he just rolls himself onto it, curling up in the sheets like a caterpillar in a cocoon. Thinking about cocoons of course makes him think about butterflies, and that thought inevitably leads to him thinking of none other than Harry Styles right before he goes to sleep. Just before he dozes off, though, he realizes that all of those dreams he’s had about being Harry’s boyfriend or going on dates with him might become _real_ and suddenly he can’t wait to start dreaming about bigger and even better things with the boy. Definitely not sex though. He’d never dream about that.

-

When Louis comes home at half past seven on Friday night, he’s proud of himself for coming up with a nice new Vans design in time for his deadline and he’s dying of anxiety about the date he has with Harry in- an hour.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” he grumbles, kicking his shoes off somewhere in the living room and tossing his clothes off everywhere as soon as he’s in his bedroom.

He decided not to pick out an outfit ahead of time because Zayn says that it’s supposedly bad luck and Louis didn’t want to take that chance. That’s probably the biggest regret of his life.

In his room, Louis starts digging through all of his drawers and closet, holding different items up to himself in front of the mirror to see how they look. Nearly everything he picks up doesn't seem good enough though, so a pile of clothing quickly builds up on his bed and partly on the floor surrounding it. After about twenty minutes of no decision, he throws himself into the pile on the bed, burying himself in a grey sweater and groaning loudly in exhaustion.

As a sudden thought he pulls out his phone and rolls over in the clothes, sending a quick text to Harry. The response takes a moment and he thinks maybe Harry is stressing out as much as him, or he's cooking dinner. The first one is what he's hoping for.

_From **harry <3**: Purple.. Why do you need to know my favorite color?_

_From **harry <3**: Are you bringing me flowers?? You’re so sweet!_

Instead of replying, Louis decides to let Harry's imagination go wild with whether or not there will be purple flowers or even a purple teddy bear in his hands later. Then he groans again because of course Harry's favorite color is his least, meaning that there isn't even anything as simple as a purple t-shirt in his possession.

Walking down the hall to Zayn's room, the closet is already open and Louis takes it upon himself to take the first purple sweater he sees and throw it on himself. It's a little long so he rolls the sleeves up, but it's just a relief that he finally has a start on his outfit for the date that's now in thirty minutes. He scurries back to his bedroom and picks out some black skinny jeans and white Vans to match, glad that he doesn't have to worry about an outfit anymore.

The sun is starting to set outside and Louis admires it for a second before going into the bathroom to fix his hair. It doesn't take long to push his hair back and finally he smiles at himself in the mirror and flicks all of the lights off, saying a goodbye to Spider-Man as he grabs his keys and wallet and heads out the front door.

The traffic is terrible since it's rush hour and it takes an extra minute for Louis to find the address Harry had texted him the day before. Finally he pulls into a cute, nice looking gated neighbourhood and types in the code Harry sent for him to get in. After that, he drives around until he spots the correct house, aweing for a moment at the chic simplicity of the town villa in front of him. He parks his Porsche on the road in front of it, not sure if he's supposed to park in the driveway or not. There is a moment where he wonders how Harry affords such a nice house and a Range Rover, but he decides he'll ask about it later.

Stepping up to the front door, he presses the doorbell, looking around at the other surrounding houses; somehow their glass fronts and expensive-car-filled driveways make Harry’s house look like a shack and Louis and Zayn’s apartment look like a supply closet. It’s crazy that people can actually **afford** these. He wonders if they work as lawyers or surgeons, maybe even musicians and actors.

The door opens suddenly and startles Louis, snapping him back into reality. Harry stands holding the door open and let’s out a loud cackle when he looks at Louis, quickly covering his mouth with his hand like he’s just cursed in church.

“What’re you laughing at?” Louis asks, confused.

“Just like your sweater is all,” Harry replies nonchalantly but with a grin on his face.

It takes a moment for Louis to understand until he takes in what Harry’s wearing and then looks down at himself. “God damnit, I thought I was going to be cute wearing your favorite color sweater and everything but of course you choose to wear the exact same fucking one. You ruined my plan, Styles.”

Harry raises his arms up in defense, holding the door with his hip. “Hey, I didn’t know you were going to wear this sweater, I was running late and just threw on the first thing in my closet,” he says.

“Nah, you probably have a camera set up in my flat don’t you?” Louis accuses him, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms in an intimidating position.

“Oh shut up and get in here already, you look like a lion cub about to pounce or me or something,” Harry says, reaching out and grabbing Louis’ bicep, pulling him into the house against his resistance.

“You need to change your shirt,” Louis snarls, cocking his head and looking up at Harry through his eyelashes. The taller boy just smirks and pets Louis’ head making him scrunch his face up.

“Easy, boy, don’t bite me,” he laughs, “Just wait in the living room alright. Can’t have you seeing what’s for dinner yet!”

Louis sighs and nods, stepping forward a few feet and watching as Harry jogs up the suspended staircase to the right of him. Taking in the inside of the house Louis gets extremely jealous. The furniture isn’t anything too expensive looking, but the design structure of it all is amazing. Looking straight forward from where he stands, there are two sliding glass doors in the wall with deep maroon curtains swooping to the sides where they’re pinned. Outside of them there’s an inground pool and a large valley visible behind that, the main part of the city in view not too far in the distance. In all it’s a bit small, but still cozy with the living room set up over in the left corner, where one set of glass doors are, and a bar separating the kitchen off from everything else. A glass dining room table sits a few feet behind the staircase in the right corner of the room.

Finally, the walls around the room are covered in cool art pieces and photographs of things that Louis can’t make out. He’s just finished examining the place when he sees a body coming back down the stairs, dressed in a semi see-through black buttondown that’s showing off-

“Are those tattoos?” Louis asks, following Harry to the kitchen and stopping when Harry scolds him and points to stay behind the counter. He knew Harry had tattoos, yes, but not on his _torso_. All he wants to do is lick them now.

“They are,” Harry replies. He’s busy scooping something onto two plates while Louis sits on a barstool trying to get a glimpse of the newly discovered ink and the food. “Maybe you’ll get to see them closer sometime,” he turns around to Louis and winks.

“Hopefully by ‘sometime’ you mean ‘in the next hour’, otherwise I’m probably going to rip off your shirt in the middle of dinner.” They both laugh softly at that..

Shortly after, the room falls silent apart from the noises Harry’s making as he now works trying to set the dinner table. Louis was specifically told not to watch but he can’t help his curiosity so he pretends to be on his phone while he moves his eyes across the candle-lit table and vase of roses in the center. He looks down at his phone as soon as Harry claps and looks up at him.

“Dinner is served,” he grins, pulling out a chair for Louis and laughing when Louis sits down and teases him about being such a gentleman.

The plate in front of Louis is filled with pasta that looks to be Chicken Alfredo along with a breadstick that’s dripping with butter sauce. His stomach growls as he smells the food, so quickly he picks up a fork and scoops a bite into his mouth. The sauce is seasoned perfectly and the chicken is grilled to perfection, and he moans, giving a thumbs up.

“This is rewwy good,” he says with his mouth still full of pasta then blushes as he swallows, “Uh, sorry I don’t have the best table manners. I’m used to sitting on my couch eating microwave meals and frozen pizzas honestly.”

Harry shrugs, “What do you think I do when I’m here alone?”

That sort of breaks any awkwardness that was left and Louis smiles before really digging into the dish, relishing in the great flavors of the food. They make some small talk about their jobs or how Niall and Zayn are doing, but overall it’s a quiet meal, just the sounds of forks clanking on the plates filling the room.

It doesn’t take long for Harry to finish (Louis thinks it’s unfair because his mouth is bigger) and now it’s just Louis trying to finish off the last bites of bread and noodles. Harry waits patiently for Louis to finish of course but doesn’t take long afterwards to ask for his opinions.

“Did it turn out okay?” Harry asks shyly.

“I already told you that it was delicious,” Louis rolls his eyes with a teasing smile.

“Actually, you said it was ‘rewwy good’, not delicious.” If there’s one thing Louis appreciates about this boy it’s that he’s good at being sarcastic, which is the main thing Louis looks for in a guy. Well, one of the main things apart from a big- you know.

“Ah, shut up,” Louis says. He stands up, grabbing his plate to take to the kitchen, but before he can walk anywhere Harry saunters up to him and takes the plate straight from his hands, muttering something about “you’re my guest, I’m not going to make you put up your own dish.”

He argues that it wouldn’t be a big deal but Harry deliberately ignores him and continues on to the kitchen, placing both of the plates in the dishwasher and setting the silverware in the sink. There’s a sense of order and routine to the way he does it that makes Louis feel kind of out of place, like he doesn’t fit into this preset route. The feeling rushes away soon enough, though, when Harry grabs his hand and walks him towards the living room area.

“You can take your shoes off if you want, don’t want you to be uncomfortable while we watch the movie,” Harry offers, taking his own boots off and kicking them beside the couch.

Louis nods and repeats the action, carefully setting his Vans down though, not feeling comfortable enough yet to just make a mess in someone else’s home- which is slightly out of character for him. The lush carpet covering the hardwood is soft under his feet, making him want to stand on it all night long.

“So how do you afford all this nice stuff?” He asks as he drops himself onto the couch and sinks into the cushions that are even softer and more plush than the carpet.

“Not a very long story really; grandad owned a huge company or something and left me tons of money in his will,” Harry shrugs as if he was just asked why he chose red curtains over blue.

Louis doesn’t press on, the answer being satisfying enough, so he sits and waits for Harry to get the tv set up and tries to make bets with himself at what kind of movie it’s going to be. Right now he’s got twenty on either a romantic comedy or a cheesey Nicholas Sparks type film.

Harry finally says something under his breath and sighs when the dvd start comes up on the flat screen, signaling that it’s working and ready to go. He slides in a mystery movie and steps back as it loads, hesitantly sitting on the couch just inches away from Louis.

The coffee table is apparently some sort of magic box, because Harry lifts the top up and pulls out a huge fuzzy blanket, draping it over himself and Louis. Louis hums in thanks and intently watches the movie previews, trying to divert his mind from the fact that Harry is literally _right there_.

When the disc menu comes up Louis can’t stop a comment from flying out of his mouth. “I knew it!”

“Whadya mean?” Harry turns to him and pouts.

“You just seemed like someone who would watch The Vow on a first date,” Louis states, a little proud about the fact that he nearly hit the nail on the head. If only it had been by Nicholas Sparks.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Harry draws out slowly, like he’s asking a question but doesn’t wait for a reply before clicking play with the remote.

The first part of the movie goes nice, both of them wincing when the car accident happens, but it’s the part when Channing walks through the house naked that some conversation arises.

“Never seen such a great ass before,” Harry awes. He winces when Louis slaps him and looks over confused at what he said wrong.

“Don’t act like you’ve never seen mine, I know you were staring that first time we met,” Louis says cockily, wiggling his eyebrows up and down at Harry.

“I don’t remember that,” Harry says, twisting his face up like he’s thinking hard, “I think you might have some memory loss like the girl in the movie.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, Harold, I’m pretty sure you would be the one with the memory loss.”

“My name is Harry, Lewis,” Harry replies with a humph.

“Whatever you say Harold, and you should know that Lewis doesn’t bother me anyways, cus that’s actually the name I went by until I was about 16,” Louis says matter-of-factly. Harry just shakes his head.

“I am never going to win with you,” Harry says more to himself than to Louis. “I think I’m going to make it my goal to win an argument with you or just do something that you can’t think of a reply for.”

“You can try all you want, but I don’t think that’s-” And then he’s cut off because he can’t talk.

He _literally_ can’t talk because there are two hands on his cheeks and there are lips on his and his mind can’t process what’s happening because it happened so quickly. It might be Harry’s lips on his, he doesn’t know for sure, but instead of trying to think he responds back, moving his lips a little and pressing forward. The deep groan that comes from the person in front of him gives away that yes, this definitely is Harry and yes, he’s definitely kissing him.

Louis presses forward harder at the realization, moving his hands out from under the blankets to Harry’s hair, clenching the curls at the bottom of his neck between his fingers and pulling. Harry groans again but this time his lips part some so Louis takes advantage of it and licks at his bottom lip, willing them to open further. When they do, he starts opening and closing his mouth, softly moving his tongue into Harry’s mouth to take dominance of the kiss.

Before he can get any further, though, Harry pulls his head back, both of them breathing heavy. Louis opens his eyes slowly and sees the younger boy in front of him, face flushed pink, eyes closed, and lips still parted the slightest bit and tinted red like he’s wearing lipstick. Eventually there’s green eyes looking back into Louis’ blue and he can’t help but put a small smile on his lips and lean forward for one last peck before pulling back again.

They stare at each other like they’re having a mental conversation, just gazing with heart eyes and completely ignoring the movie that’s been playing in the background the whole time.

“What were you going to say again?” Harry grins lazily.

“I was going to say- well it doesn’t matter because you cheated,” Louis pouts, slumping back into the couch cushion behind his back.

“I did something that you couldn’t think of a reply for, so I think I followed the rules perfectly.” He says it gently, no cocky tone to his voice like Louis knows there’d be if the situation were reversed.

It amazes him honestly, how him and Harry are so alike yet still so different. If there were some way Louis could sit and watch Harry throughout his daily life without it being creepy he would, just to compare and contrast how parallel they are and mostly just awe at how perfect Harry is personality and beauty wise. Maybe that’s the reason why he’s so amazed with him; the curls and soft skin and dimples mixed with plush, pink lips and deep green eyes making some kind of magnetic field that attracts Louis against his will. Harry Styles is a force of nature and Louis doesn’t know if there’s any getting away now.

“Fine, you win let’s just finish this movie now,” Louis says and he doesn’t mean for it to come out in a mean way but it must because Harry sort of slumps and leans back away from Louis.

The older boy isn’t having it though, instantly scooting over to curl into Harry’s side and lay his arm across his chest. The sigh Harry lets out tells that he did the right thing and now there’s a hand rubbing up and down his back which isn’t good because his eyes start feeling heavy and his body feels like it’s getting more and more relaxed. After about fifteen minutes of struggling to keep his eyes open, Louis finally let’s out one long breath and relaxes himself into his human pillow, trying to convince himself that the kiss on his head is nothing more than an overtired hallucination of his mind.

-

When he wakes up, there’s a single beam of light shining in through two heavy curtains and Louis looks around the room that he’s in. There’s white walls and dressers and pictures hanging up that he doesn’t recognize. Then it dawns on him that he must have fallen asleep at Harry’s last night and now he’s in what’s presumably his bedroom.

He sits up onto his elbows and turns his head to the side, fixing his gaze on a lump in the blankets behind a large pillow. Hesitantly he reaches out and moves the pillow, everything but surprised when a face comes into view.

While he’s sleeping, Harry looks even more beautiful than he does when he’s awake, the dimples and shining eyes replaced with soft breaths and a tuft of curls surrounding his face in a messy mane. After a moment he starts to feel awkward watching Harry sleep, so he lays his head back down and lies on his back, counting the glow in the dark stars that are stuck to the ceiling above the bed.

He’s at 24 when there’s a groan from beside him and he rolls his head, looking over into half lidded green eyes.

“Morning, Lou,” Harry says, his voice rough and scratchy with sleep, breaking at the nickname.

“Goodmorning, curly,” Louis replies. He stares at Harry as he sits up and stretches his arms out then falls back onto the pillow again. “So.. how did you get me in here?”

“Oh,” Harry starts, pausing to clear his throat, “you fell asleep on me and after the movie ended I carried you bridal style and laid you down in here. Didn’t have to cover you or anything; you kinda just rolled up and buried yourself in the comforter as soon as I set you down.”

"I’m surprised I didn’t wake up," Louis hums as a thought, "cus normally when Zayn does the same thing at our place he bangs my feet on corners of the wall and shit.”

“Well, I was extra careful not to hit you on any walls. Wouldn’t look like a very good host if I had to give my guest an ice pack on their first night here.”

“Hm, so are you implying that there’ll be more nights then?” He teases, looking over at Harry who shrugs.

“I hope there will be at least,” he says quietly and looks over to meet Louis’ gaze with a soft smile.

“Don’t worry about that too much, I always need a place to go when Zayn has his boyfriend over,” Louis says and then makes a disgusted face to make a point about the last part. "Some things can never be unheard."

Harry mimics Louis' expression and shakes his head, “I get that, so feel free to knock on my door whenever you need to.”

They sit in the bed for a few minutes longer, both of them groaning about not wanting to get up until finally Louis decides he can’t hold in his pee any longer and throws the covers off of himself, pacing to the bathroom to relieve his bladder. When he gets to the toilet he has to unzip his pants and that’s when he realizes that he’s still got on his clothes from the night before. He knows he’s too small to fit into Harry’s stuff though so he decides not to say anything about it when he walks into the kitchen.

Harry is reaching up to the top shelf of a cabinet trying to pull something down, and Louis can’t help himself from staring at the boy’s bare back, sitting on top of a bar stool and resting his head in his hand. He stares at the way Harry’s back muscles move and takes in every tattoo that he can see scattered across his body. The tattoo that has Louis’ heart thumping though, is the butterfly on Harry’s stomach that becomes visible when he turns around to set what looks to be a waffle maker down on the counter in front of Louis.

“I see you like the butterfly, huh,” Harry says casually as if people stare at his stomach every day. He looks up at Louis and smiles before walking over another cabinet and pulling out a box of waffle mix.

“It’s.. interesting, yeah,” Louis says. He can’t help but ask what it means. “Why’d you get it?”

“Oh,” Harry starts, measuring a cup of water and pouring it plus some mix into a big glass bowl, “you ever heard of the saying like ‘butterflies in your stomach’?”

Louis nods his head in assurance that yes, he really knows what that means. _Have you ever heard of having caterpillars in your stomach and them growing into butterflies later on? Because that’s what’s happened since I met you._ “Yeah, everyone’s heard of that.”

“Well, that’s basically it,” he shrugs. “You might’ve been expecting a more interesting story, but it just hasn’t really got that much significance.”

Louis doesn’t believe that that’s all there is to the story, and he knows he shouldn’t considering they’ve known each other for only a short time, but he presses on more about the subject. “Come on, curly, there’s gotta be something more to it than that because people don’t just tattoo their stomachs for no reason. Also, you don’t seem like a just-for-fun tattooer, although I’ll admit you’ve got everyone I know beat for the amount of ink you’ve got.”

Harry sighs and twists his arms around so that the inside is facing outwards, pressing his palms down onto the side of the counter. “Before I came out, I was really insecure and confused about everything. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t as interested in girls as my friends; why I always preferred to sit out of spin the bottle at every party and never hook up with any of the girls who threw themselves at me. But one day I decided to ask my nan about it because I always trusted her with anything I couldn’t keep to myself and she always gave the best advice. I asked her what it meant if I was more into staring at guys in class than girls and she said that it doesn’t matter who it is, that if they make the butterflies in your stomach wake up then they’re worth going after and keeping. That kind of pushed me forward in understanding that I definitely liked guys because they made butterflies appear in my stomach and it eventually gave me the reassurance I needed to come out to my friends and family. She passed away last year, so I decided to get the tattoo in remembrance of her and what she said to me that day. Thanks for not laughing at it like most guys do when they see it.” He finally pauses and takes a shuddery breath, squeezing his eyes like he’s trying not to cry.

Louis hops off of the stool and walks around the counter, coming up behind Harry and wrapping his arms around his torso, pressing his face against his back. Louis usually isn’t intimate or anything with anyone he dates, so this is something new, but he thinks it’s nice. After a moment of silence, Harry wiggles around in Louis’ arms so that they’re facing each other.

“Want to stir the mix?” It’s all Harry asks and it turns the mood of the conversation back around to a more lighthearted zone and Louis is thankful because he’s not the best at giving advice or helping people with real problems. He talks to a statue for advice for himself, that’s not a typical sign of someone you should trust during serious matters.

Of course he wants to stir the batter though.

"Do you have chocolate chips?" Louis asks excitedly with wide eyes. Harry pouts and shakes his head and Louis huffs and steps back, crossing his arms.

"But I've got blueberries, strawberries, and bananaaaas," the taller boy drawls teasingly, as if he somehow knows that Louis also loves fruit on his pancakes and waffles. Louis shows how correct he is by letting out a small cheer and bouncing up and down on his toes.

"You're so great I could kiss you," he says without thinking and before the smile can freeze on his face, Harry chuckles and leans forward, placing his lips on Louis'.

The bowl of ingredients is abandoned as they both get caught up in the moment and each other. Louis steps forward, pressing Harry back against the counter even though he's the smaller of the two. Their lips move together for just a moment longer before Harry starts pulling back, Louis leaning forward on his toes unwilling to break apart just yet. He does let go eventually, though, and steps back with a dopey smile spread across his slightly pink face.

It's crazy how the location can change things completely. At his flat he felt normal, like he was in real life with his statue and smoothies, but here it feels like he's trapped in a sappy love movie like The Notebook. Louis hates (secretly loves) those movies.

"Strawberries. Put strawberries on mine," he says, clearing his throat when his voice cracks.

"I knew you had a strawberry fetish," Harry remarks and Louis shoves one of his shoulders, shaking his head and laughing along with the curly haired boy.

"Shut up."

Harry walks over a few steps and grabs a weird metal thing - that looks like it could be used for extra terrestrial cooking, Louis notes - from a drawer and hands it to Louis. The smaller boy grabs it and turns it around in his hand, staring at it with scrunched eyebrows. Then a hand covers his and his arm is being pulled over to the bowl.

"It's a whisk you neanderthal, you mix things with it," Harry says teasingly, letting go of Louis' hand once he puts in in the bowl and starts swirling it.

"I knew that I just wanted to see if it was quality enough for me to use," Louis lies, knowing that Harry doesn't believe the ridiculous statement when he puts his hands up in defense and holds back a laugh.

He stands and mixes for a while, Harry only having to intervene twice telling Louis he's not stirring at the right speed or he missed some mix stuck to the side of the bowl. After he's done, Harry pours it into the maker, somehow managing to fill out each waffle mold perfectly without getting more than a little dribble on the counter.

Louis perches himself up on the counter and kicks his feet while Harry wanders around pulling out dishes and silverware and different toppings. The machine beeps and Harry flips them out onto plates. They each only get one because they're Belgian waffles and ridiculously fluffy.

Harry gives the go for Louis to decorate his waffle once he's chopped up some strawberries and the older boy goes all out. He doesn't know how to make these and Zayn only ever makes the cheap toaster ones, so he decides to make the best of this experience. He tops on butter, whipped cream, powdered sugar, syrup, and obviously a load of berries to fulfill his supposed strawberry fetish. When he looks over, Harty's waffle just has whipped cream and sliced bananas put neatly around it in a circle pattern.

They sit on the couch to eat today and Harry turns the tv on to a channel playing music videos. Louis props his feet up on the coffee table since Harry doesn't stop him and the mentioned other boy sits with his long legs crossed Indian styles beside him.

"Your waffle is pathetic," Louis snarls before cutting a large piece out of his and stuffing it into his mouth.

"Just because mine isn't ten thousand calories doesn't mean it's pathetic," Harry rolls his eyes and cuts a careful piece out of his. Louis stares at how his tongue comes out when he places the fork in his mouth; he must have been avoiding doing that at dinner last night.

"Oh, so now you're calling me fat!" Louis exclaims with a melodramatic gasp. "See if I ever kiss you again, Styles."

He looks forward and tries to hold up a tough front as he watches the television and hums along to the song in his head. It's a song by some girl that Louis can't remember the name of but it's talking about jagging someone's swagger so he decides it's catchy enough to look up later.

"Oh you know I wasn't calling you fat," Harry coos, poking at Louis' cheeks as he chews. "You're adorable even with your diabetes inducing mound of waffle. And I know you couldn't not kiss me, I'm irresistible."

"You are," Louis sighs and turns to Harry, patting his cheek reassuringly.

Harry smiles and shows off his dimples purposely. He's too cute for Louis, so apparently Cupid or Mother Nature or whoever controls love must just feel really bad for his love life.

They finish eating a while later, spending most of the time watching music videos and singing along with their worst voices. Harry did finally notice Louis' clothes too, and practically _forced_ Louis to wear his.

_("You've been wearing those clothes since last night, do you want something to change into?"_

_"No, I'm fine. Your stuff is too big anyways."_

_"I'll get you a sweater and an old pair of shorts. I know I have some somewhere in my closet."_

_"Fine.")_

Now here they are, saying goodbye at the front door, Louis wearing a thin white sweater and some jean shorts, both having to be rolled up just once.

"I had a really good time, don't want to help Zayn bring all of his new equipment up to the apartment now," Louis sighs, frowning.

"What's he do anyways?" Harry asks.

"He's a dj. Pretty popular too, with his own page on Spotify and everything," Louis says proudly because his best friend is awesome.

"That's sick! I'll have to check him out later," Harry says excitedly. "Zayn Malik, right?"

Louis hums a yes and nods, then the space falls silent. Harry steps around Louis and pulls open the door, as if he's about to kick him out, then pulls a card from his pocket and holds it out.

"This'll open the front gate without a code, if you ever choose to visit again," he grins, watching Louis as he carefully takes the key.

"I'm not sure I'll be back, so you might want to kiss me while you can."

Harry doesn't respond and Louis pecks him on the lips, lingering just a second to relish in the softness of Harry's lips on his.

"Bye, Lou," Harry says and smiles.

"Goodbye, curly!" Louis exclaims, smiling so big that his eyes scrunch and he's showing off all of his teeth.

He steps down the walkway and turns around one last time to wave back at Harry who's staring at him like he's looking at a piece of art. They break their gaze when the door shuts and Louis is left alone outside, standing in front on Harry's house in the heat.

"Fuck," he mutters under his breath. It may be because of the temperature or maybe Harry, he doesn't really know. It just seems like a word that fits the moment.

-

Three weeks and two real dates later, not much has changed. Louis and Harry still aren’t officially together, Zayn and Liam are still disgusting, and from what Harry says, Niall is doing great.

Harry and Louis have been texting each other nonstop since the first date, and when they aren’t texting, they’re on a date or at the other’s house. One night, for example, they went to see Divergent together so that they could both drool over Theo James, and another night Harry came over to Louis’ and they played Fifa and danced in their underwear all night.

Right now though, Louis is sitting on the couch texting Harry while he waits for Zayn to finish getting ready.

“Would you come on already, my stomach is going to eat itself and the other boys are probably already at the restaurant,” he calls out loudly in the direction of Zayn’s room.

He doesn’t get time to turn his head back around before Zayn walks out into the living room and Louis sighs self pityingly at the sight of him. He’s got on black skinnies, a loose shirt with some odd design on it, and a pair of classic Vans that Louis remembers asking Zayn to help him design. In all it’s a typical casual outfit, but somehow Zayn manages to make it look as if it belongs at New York Fashion Week rather than some chain restaurant like Chili’s that they’re actually going to tonight.

“Why did I ever dump you, you’re hot,” Louis groans as he pushes himself up from the couch and smirks.

“Oh, so the story is that _you_ dumped _me_ , is it?” Zayn asks, nodding his head and pushing his hair back with one hand.

“That’s exactly what happened, Malik, now let’s go already,” Louis says. He grabs his wallet from the table beside the front door and pulls the door open, gesturing his hand until Zayn walks past him, reaching a hand up to ruffle Louis’ hair in the process. Louis huffs and growls some nasty remark, mentioning something about revenge and sex tapes.

Louis tells Zayn to drive because he likes the Camaro more than his own Porsche, and they spend the ride comparing Harry and Liam and bickering about whether or not friends should be allowed to take other friends’ sweaters without asking them first. Finally they pull up to the crowded restaurant and get out of the car to find Harry, Niall, and Liam all standing in a group together, talking and laughing which is a good sign.

“Sorry we’re late, mister mysterious bad boy over here took ages getting ready,” Louis explains, pointing a thumb at Zayn who’s standing to his right.

All of the faces are now turned towards them and immediately the circle is resituated as Harry pulls Louis into his side and Zayn and Liam reach down to hold hands.

“Harry mentioned I might be a fifth wheel but _Jesus_ , this is worse than I expected. Feel like I’m the host of one of those dream date shows on MTV,” Niall exclaims but it’s obvious he’s joking when he cackles loudly at himself afterwards.

All the other boys laugh and Louis internally let’s out a sigh of relief, glad that he doesn’t have to worry about any awkward ice breakers or twenty questions type introductions.

“So how long have you all been waiting out here?” Zayn questions, glancing around at all of the other groups waiting inside and outside like them.

“Well I’ve been waiting about ten,” Liam chimes in, shrugging as if to say he didn’t mind at all.

“Harry made us get here thirty minutes early ' _just in case'_ ,” Niall says shaking his head. “Not sure if he thought you guys would be here an hour early or if he wanted to have time to reapply his makeup before he came in.”

Harry whacks him in the back of the head with his hand and glares. “I invited you to be a good friend, not to have you embarrass me and tell lies about me the whole night.”

“Sorry, dad, I’ll be on my best behaviour in front of your new boyfriend.”

Louis feels Harry’s grip tighten on his side, and turns to look at his face, watching as he opens and shuts his mouth like he can’t think of what to say. He decides to intervene the situation without actually thinking about the words coming out of his mouth.

“His boyfriend doesn’t care how you act, honestly,” he says and Harry snaps his head down and gives him a look as if to say _“Do you know what you just said?”_ He smiles at Harry and nods his head and apparently Harry gets the message because he smiles wide and his eyes shine bright, clearly happy with this sudden label on their relationship.

Right at that moment the buzzer in Niall’s hand starts buzzing and they all mutter out small cheers as they make their way inside the loud and crowded restaurant, following the server to their booth. The table isn’t quite big enough for them all to fit, so they settle with sitting the couples down on each actual booth and stealing a chair from a nearby table to set at the end of the table for Niall. In the end it’s Louis on the inside sitting across from Zayn, Harry and Liam sitting beside them, and Niall enjoying himself at the end, going on about how he’s the king of the table now.

After they’ve all ordered their drinks and food, there’s a desperate need for a conversation starter. Luckily Liam senses it too and speaks out.

“So, Harry, how’d you and the lovely Tommo meet each other?” he asks as the waitress comes back and sets their drinks down on the table.

“Well,” Harry starts, patting Louis’ thigh under the table, “it’s interesting. Louis came up to mine and Niall’s fruit stand looking for “Louis Tomlinson certified” fruit to put in his smoothie.” He pauses to let the three boys laugh at Louis before continuing. “Then, it started raining and he locked himself out of his car so I decided - being the nice person that I am - to let him sit in my car with me where we sang along to Call Me Maybe and other various pop tunes. Obviously we kept in touch, met up a few times, and _boom_ , here we are now!”

Everyone’s heads snap to Niall who starts clapping loudly and mockingly wiping a tear from under his eye. “Such a beautiful and inspiring story. Can’t believe I was there to witness it all begin.”

“Oh shove off,” Harry cocks his head to Niall and grins, obviously not able to stay mad at the blonde. “How about you two lovebirds, anything as touching as ours?”

Louis laughs mischievously, “Liam tried to get Zayn’s attention one night when he was djing and they ended up fucking in the bathrooms and getting together like a week later.” He takes a sip from his drink and chokes when Zayn kicks his shin under the table, looking up to see the boy glaring at him.

“You make it sound like a one night stand turned to romance,” Zayn scoffs.

Louis just widens his eyes and looks around at the other boys, an incredulous look on his face. “I said it exactly how it happened, minus all the disgusting, gushy details!”

Zayn goes to reply but Liam puts a hand on his shoulder, “That is how it happened though, Zaynie.”

Louis leans back against the booth and throws a hand out, “I told you!”

The rest of their conversation is centered around nothing important until their dishes are finally brought out. Niall’s food is taking up most of the table, having three different plates for his fajitas, so Harry moves his plate and body over closer to Louis. He says it’s just to give Niall more space but Louis knows that he’s just trying to annoy him because he’s bigger and now Louis is smushed against the wall, carefully scooping bites of his chicken pasta with his elbow bent at an awkward angle.

Somehow Louis miraculously finishes his meal without getting any kind of pop from his elbow. When their plates are taken up the waitress asks if they want deserts and before Louis can say no, Harry is ordering them a molten lava cake with two spoons. Zayn ordered the same as Harry and Niall gets himself one of the cookies in a skillet.

“If I throw up just know that I’m going to aim at you,” he threatens at Harry, eyeing a couple at a table near theirs eating the cake. He awes at how good it looks but then grimaces remembering how full he is.

“If I have to get someone's puke on me, I'd much rather have your puke than any of their puke,” Harry shrugs and Louis thinks it might be the most disgusting yet romantic thing that anyone's ever said to him, and he's heard some pretty interesting things.

“That’s sweet of you,” Liam chimes in. "Zayn, why don't you say romantic things like that to me?"

"Isn't 'daddy' romantic enough?" Louis asks sarcastically and smiles to himself when both of the boys look up at him with hard eyes.

"Time to change the subject I think," Niall claps and starts talking about some odd lady who came to the fruit stand a few weeks back.

The story is long enough to last until their desserts are brought out and now Louis is a bit excited about the cake because his stomach has had time to digest some of his food to make room for more.

"Open your mouth," Louis commands to Harry. He scoops up a mound of cake, hot fudge and ice cream onto the spoon and holds it up to Harry's lips, waiting patiently for them to part.

Harry opens his mouth and wraps his lips around the spoon as Louis pulls it out making Louis want to hit him with the piece of metal. He can't think dirty thoughts in the middle of a restaurant with three other guys sitting across from him.

"Can I return the favor?" Harry asks, doing the same as Louis but with much less on the spoon compared to before. Louis just opens his mouth and quickly pulls the food off the spoon so that Harry doesn't think he's trying to start a game of teasing.

When Louis goes to give Harry another bite though, Niall chooses to bring up the one topic Louis was struggling in his mind to avoid thinking about.

"So who has better sex of you two couples?"

All four of the boys being referred to pause and look up at each other, but when Zayn meets Louis' eye he smirks knowingly. "Those two haven't done it yet."

Niall gasps, "Not even a _blow job_?"

The curly haired one stays quiet and Louis clears his throat, not saying anything in response either, just letting the question hang in the air.

"Well then," Niall continues, taking another bite of his cookie, "maybe we should finish these dishes up fast so the two can go home and make sweet-"

Harry cuts him off, raising his hand in the air and looking around the room for the waitress. "Check please!"

-

"That was a fun dinner," Louis says, laying on his stomach on his bed, head turns sideways on the pillow so he can breathe and talk.

They stayed at the restaurant for quite a while and when they left, Louis drove Harry to his place, Liam took Zayn home with him, and Niall drove Harry's car over to Harry's house presumably to stay the night there even though he'd be there alone. So now here the two of them are, laying side by side on Louis' bed at ten pm, both trying not to think about what was said earlier. It's not working though because Louis keeps zoning out thinking of grinding against Harry or having his cock in his mouth.

"Yeah, fun," Harry breathes then sighs loudly. "So.. Boyfriends?"

"Mm if you want then, yes, we're boyfriends," Louis says, drawing out the last word and smiling lopsided because his head is half pressed into a pillow.

"Would boyfriends have done the do with each other by now," Harry asks timidly and Louis can't help but chuckle at how he phrased it.

"I don't know if they would have 'done the do', but they might have fucked by now," Louis responds. _Yes, so we should fuck now_ , he thinks to himself.

"Sarcastic little shit," Harry smirks and then, as if a switch has been flipped inside of him, he's on top of Louis.

The older boy swallows thickly and rolls over onto his back, looking up into Harry's eyes and noticing that the dark green is now covered by dark lust. He can't think but it doesn't matter anyways because soon enough Harry is coming closer and his lips are on Louis' neck, kissing lightly and sucking gently.

"God, baby," Louis groans, tilting his head back to give Harry more access than his already low-cut shirt allows.

"If I'm baby," Harry says in between kisses on Louis' collar bone, "then are you daddy?"

He punctuates the question by biting down on Louis' collar bone and pressing his hips down. Louis' vocal chords aren't connected with his brain anymore so he nods his head and moans, hoping maybe that gives Harry an idea that that's exactly what he's to be called.

As Harry keeps nipping at Louis' collar bones, his fingers trail down Louis' body to undo the button of his pants. By the time he reaches it, Louis is already heaving his lower body up to meet with Harry's hips. "More, baby," Louis begs, as Harry's fingers brush against the outline of his cock.

"Do you think I can suck you off?" Harry asks, taking off his shirt because of how hot this situation is making him. "Please, daddy," he begs, looking up to Louis, bringing him closer to him so that their lips meet for a kiss. Slightly after pulling back from the kiss, Louis takes off his shirt and demands Harry to leave soft kisses against his skin. Louis nods.

"Get on with it, please baby," Louis breathes out as Harry's fingers undo his pants, pulling them down and taking his boxer briefs with them. Louis is stark naked, his hard cock barely brushing the soft skin of his stomach. "Want your mouth on my cock, Harry, please don't tease," and Louis is never that needy, it's just that he has waited so long to have Harry's mouth around his dick – he's even imagined it - so he can't wait to see and feel the real thing.

Harry winks at Louis and starts licking a stripe up Louis' dick, from base to tip, carefully licking all of the precum that's dripping from the tip. The prominent vein on Louis' dick is more visible than it usually is which is why Louis isn't even surprised when Harry's tongue starts flicking against it.

"I love pleasuring you, daddy. You've got such a pretty cock," Harry says, putting emphasis on every word, "If I suck you off and make you come, are you going to fuck me? 'S going to be your turn to please your baby." Before Louis can even answer the question, Harry throws him another wink and goes back to sucking his cock.

Harry's bright and pink lips around Louis' cock make him groan in pleasure; they even make him thrust his hips up into Harry's mouth. Harry lets his mouth get fucked and when Louis comes with a long string of _shitshitshit_ and many other profanities, he makes sure to swallow every single drop. Damn that boy is good with his mouth.

"Come on, baby, spread your legs open for me," Louis demands, massaging the bare skin on Harry's back. fingers slowly pressing against his ass. Harry does as he's told, spreading his long legs apart, with a smug look on his face. "M'ready daddy," Harry says, whimpering as he rubs his cock against the bed, as it's aching and throbbing because of how good Louis is making him feel.

Louis nods, taking the small bottle of lube he had taken with him, just in case, smearing his fingers with lube intensely. He takes one of his fingers and makes circles around the rim of his hole, making Harry shudder. "So tight, Harry. Daddy is gonna make you feel so good." Harry whimpers at that, still rubbing his cock against the soft mattress.

Louis pushes one finger in and Harry starts whimpering and riding it. He adds another one and Harry lets out a throaty moan, fingers gripping at the base of his cock. "No touching, baby. You're so eager for my cock inside your tight ass, aren't you?" Louis adds another finger, pushing it inside up to his knuckle, waiting for Harry to speak.

All Harry does is nod, and Louis pulls his fingers out. "Use your words, baby," He whispers in Harry's ear, leaving kisses down his neck.

"Please fuck me, daddy. Make me feel good. Need your cock so much, Louis," Harry hissed, begging Louis to put his fingers back in.

Louis squirts some lube on his cock, smearing it from base to top, lining his cock with Harry's hole. He pushes it in softly and Harry whimpers, groans and tightens.

Inch by inch, Harry feels Louis' warm and huge cock stretching him open, filling him up slowly. He throws his head back when Louis' cock is deep enough to hit his prostate. "More, more, daddy please," Harry whines, a rather unmanly sound erupts from his mouth.

When Louis' cock is completely inside Harry's ass, and when Harry is a mess (a whimpering mess), Louis leans over to Harry to leave kisses along his jawline, sometimes biting harder so that it will hopefully leave a lovebite. Harry leans into his touch, craving those needy and soft kisses from Louis more than anything in the world. Louis stands back up and pulls out of Harry's ass and sits on the bed.

"Come sit on my lap, baby. Want you to ride me," He demands, watching as Harry slowly moves up to put both of his legs around Louis', straddling him. He heaves himself up, as Louis lines his cock with his hole, and sinks down onto it. It slips in easily, and as soon as it's fully inside, Harry starts bobbing his hips and moving them around to get Louis to hit his sensitive parts.

When Louis feels like Harry is at ease, he starts meeting Harry's bobs with his thrusts, emitting pornstar-like moans. "Jesus." Louis groans as he looks up to admire Harry's face.

His face is scrunched up, his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes tightly closed. His mouth is opened, emitting some low groans and high pitched whimpers, much to Louis' desire. "You're doing so good, baby. You're making daddy so proud."

When Louis feels as if he's about to come, he pulls away and forces Harry to get on his dick. "You're going to make me come twice. Jesus. Loved how you felt so tight around my cock," Louis mutters as Harry is back down on his knees, ready for Louis to shoot his load in his mouth.

Harry lowers his head, mouth open as Louis smears Harry’s lips with the precome that’s dripping from the tip of his cock. “Want me to come in your mouth, baby?” Harry acquiesces and takes Louis’ cock in his mouth and deepthroats him without warning, earning a low groan from Louis as he shoots his load of come down Harry’s throat.

Of course Harry swallows it, moaning like he's eating his favorite candy. Harry's lips look like candy, Louis thinks, awed by the boy in front of him now that his senses are coming back.

Without another word they both flop over beside each other, splayed in different directions and flipped in opposite positions.

"You know," Harry says with a rough voice, staring up at the ceiling, "for someone who makes fun of other people for saying daddy in bed, you sure do seem to like it a lot."

"It's different," Louis defends, turning over so he's facing sideways to see Harry. "It's fine for you to say it to me, but I don't specifically enjoy listening to two of my friends say it to each other."

He's never thought about actually saying it to someone or having someone say it to him, it was always just planted in his mind as something odd and uncomfortable. Now that he's experienced it firsthand though, he regrets ever making fun of Zayn and Liam for it. Not that he'd ever openly admit that; he's got to keep up his reputation for always being right.

"Whatever you say, _daddy_ ," Harry grins, rolling over to rest his arm across Louis' chest and place his head on his shoulder.

"No using it outside of the bedroom is all that I ask," Louis warns. He let's out a long breath and groans as he awkwardly reaches his arms down to grab the sheets and pull them up over himself and the boy beside him. "Let's sleep now, 'm tired."

"Alright. Night, Lou," Harry whispers into his ear, making Louis' skin shiver with goosebumps.

"Sleep tight, Haz," Louis responds, finally closing his eyes and relaxing into the warmth of Harry's body pressed against him.

He's half asleep when he hears Harry say "That's a dumb nickname." and smiles softly before he drifts off for the night, happy and content and most definitely in love.

-

When Louis gets into his office on Monday morning there's a paper sitting in the middle that he's never seen before. Normally he gets packets of new projects to work on, with regulations and guidelines for how his designs should look. He sets his bag down and walks over to the desk, picking up the sheet and scrunching his eyebrows together as he reads over it.

_Louis,_

_You've got a new project to do and here's the exciting news... We're giving you the opportunity to create your own mini line within the Vans company!_

_If you take the offer, you'll be allowed to design up to five shoes centered around one central style of your choice, and the line won't have a specific name but we will feature your name on the tags and box._

_Your designs are due by the end of August and remember to take time and do your best work. Congratulations and good luck!_

"Holy shit," he says quietly to himself trying to process what he just read. He's getting his own line of shoes and people will buy them and wear them and this can't be real.

The only thing he can think to do right now is scurry out of his office and into his friend Aiden's right beside his. He knocks twice, not waiting for an answer before walking inside and throwing himself on the chair in front of Aiden's desk.

Both of their offices are laid out the same with one brick wall at the back, but Louis' office has more posters and things on the walls while Aiden chooses to hang up all of his sketches and personal pictures. He's been here a few years longer than Louis, and he's already had a line of his own. Actually, when Louis first came to work here, Aiden was the one who took him under his wing and showed him the ins and outs of the job. They've been good friends ever since.

"What do you want you little shit," Aiden says to him without glancing up from the paper he's sketching on.

"Why's everyone been calling me that lately," Louis pouts, slumping back in the chair.

"And who else has been calling you this, exactly?" Aiden asks, cocking an eyebrow and looking up at Louis with a smirk.

"My boyfriend Harry," Louis says with a smile, proud and ready to brag about how great his curly haired boy is.

Aiden already knows about Harry considering him and Louis talk nearly every day, but the fact that they're official now is new to him. He looks shocked and opens his mouth, setting his pencil down hard on his desk.

" _Boyfriend?!_ " he exclaims. "And why didn't you think to text or call me to tell me this information sooner?"

"Well, it happened Friday so you really aren't too far behind speed," Louis says casually, enjoying how invested Aiden is in his love life.

"Still," the other boy states as if Louis can tell the meaning behind the simple word. "So did you bust in here like a rabid animal to tell me that, or is there something else? Maybe an engagement? Children? Hopefully not either of those options?"

Louis gives him an absurd look and shakes his head, " _No_ , I was going to tell you that I'm getting my own line!"

As soon as the words leave his mouth Aiden jumps up from his seat and comes over to Louis, seating himself on the smaller boy's lap and hugging his face against his chest.

"Lou, that's awesome oh my god!" he boats, pulling back to let Louis breathe. "Do you know what you're going to do yet?"

"I just got the sheet five minutes ago," Louis explains, squirming around under Aiden's weight.

"Well then, let me give you some helpful tips," Aiden says. He stands up and claps his hands together, looking at Louis like a scrutinizing school teacher. "Don't overthink the designs; they should just happen naturally, which you already know. For inspiration, think of something or someone important to you, then try to find styles or materials that maybe represent the thing. And finally, don't try to outshine me, Tomlinson."

As helpful as the last part of the advice was, Louis focuses on the second thing. _"Think of something or someone important."_

The first thing that comes to mind is a someone, and this someone may or may not despise wearing socks to sleep and love cats although they'd never want to adopt one for themselves. This someone could possibly be the only person that Louis can see a long future with after only a month and a half of knowing.

"Thanks Aiden, think I might have some ideas already."

-

That night while Louis is sitting on the couch beside Zayn eating mini corn dogs, he thinks of a plan.

_To **< 3 <3 harry <3 <3**: take off next wednesday_

Louis has noticed that as the days go by, Harry's contact name obtains more and more hearts. He doesn't even really remember ever changing the name, but four hearts accurately depicts his feelings so he decides to leave it alone.

_From **< 3 <3 harry <3 <3**: Whyyy? I have to work to get money you know, I'm not some fancy executive designer person like you._

_To **< 3 <3 harry <3 <3**: you're fucking rich shut up_

_From < **3 <3 harry <3 <3**: You're being a meanie._

_To **< 3 <3 harry <3 <3**: fine sorry i have something special planned though , so pleeaassee skip work_

_From **< 3 <3 harry <3 <3**: Anything for you Lou :)_

That was easy enough. Now he has to actually go and plan because next Wednesday is nine days away and it's got to be perfect.

"Zayn, can you, Liam and Niall help me with something," Louis asks.

Zayn continues to chew his food without answering then swallows and slowly turns his head towards Louis. "I won't record a sex tape or buy you anything from an adult store, but if it's not either of those things then sure."

"Speak for yourself, I think Liam would love to see me pound into Harry," Louis jokes, laughing as he says the last part. Zayn doesn't think it's funny though and slaps Louis in the back of the head. "Fuck, sorry man."

Zayn nods his head accepting the apology, "Now what is it that you need us to do?"

"Well," Louis starts, rubbing his forearm, "I don't know _exactly_ what I'm going to do yet, but I do know that I want to drive out to the coast and go to the fair that's there right now and do some kind of dinner afterwards."

Zayn hums in thought for a moment, leaving the room silent apart from the television in the background. Then his eyes light up and he snaps his finger.

"When Liam and I first got together he took me out to the beach for our monthiversary and we had a nice little picnic sort of thing in the sand," he says dreamily, probably thinking back to the day. "It was really nice and it seems like something Harry wouldn't expect from you."

"What's that supposed to mean," Louis scoffs and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table.

"You're not a very romantic person so to say," Zayn explains. "You have some characteristics of a hopeless romantic, but you're missing the actual romance part."

Louis stares at him blankly so he sighs an dumbs it down to simpler terms.

"You're basically someone who likes cuddling and saying I love you tons of times, but you're also someone who hates romantic movies and would never set up any kind of sweet and extravagant date by yourself. Hence why you figured out the carnival part but needed help finding something to do afterwards for the more intimate part of the date."

Louis's never thought about himself like that, always just figure he was a full fledged hopeless romantic with how fast his head normally falls in love with someone. It's interesting hearing it from someone else's perspective.

"Oh, okay, that makes sense," Louis says, pursing his lips in a way that shows that he's impressed.

"You gonna do that then?" Zayn asks, standing up and grabbing the plates to place in the dishwasher.

"Probably won't be able to think of anything better so yeah," he calls loudly over his shoulder.

He watches the music video playing on tv and groans because it's something that's been overplayed for months now. It's funny because as much as Louis listens to top 40 songs on the radio, he can only actually stand about six.

Behind him, Zayn turns on the sink and it creates a noise loud enough to drown out the tv volume for a few seconds until he shuts it back off and walks over to the couch to return to his original seat.

"I'll talk to Liam about it and I think he has Niall's number from a few nights ago so I can ask him too," Zayn says, relaxing back not the couch and mimicking Louis by placing his feet on the coffee table. "It'll be great, I promise."

-

It's Wednesday of the next week and Louis is panicking trying to make sure everything is going to happen as planned later in the day. The plan is that Louis will drive himself and Harry out to the coast and go to the carnival for a few hours while Zayn, Liam, and Niall all leave in Zayn's car a little later to set up the beachside picnic for the first two boys' dinner.

He's texting waiting in his car outside of Harry's house texting Zayn when there's a tap on the passenger side window and he snaps his head over to see none other than Harry smiling back at him. He presses the unlock button on the side of the door and Harry let's himself in, his head nearly hitting the top of the car when he sits down and his knees coming up higher than what could be considered comfortable.

"Sorry my car's a bit small," Louis apologizes with a frown, "You can adjust the seat a bit, maybe pull it back so you can lay your legs out longer."

Harry nods and reaches down beside him to pull the lever and let his seat fall backwards a few inches. He sighs in content when he stretches his legs out some more as Louis shifts gear and starts driving forward.

Just a few minutes into the drive Harry pulls out his phone and asks if he can plug it into the stereo and Louis says he can partly to be nice and partly just to see the way the younger boy's cheek dimples when he says thank you.

After about ten minutes of them sitting quietly listening to different indie bands that Harry has in his music, Harry speaks up and asks the question that Louis has already been expecting.

"Where are we going?" he asks simply, turning to look at Louis.

"A place," Louis responds with a straight face, pretending not to see Harry frown in the corner of his eye.

"What plaace," Harry asks, drawing out the last word like a child. When Louis shakes his head and gives him a scolding look he takes it a step further. "Daddy, where are we going?"

Louis takes a deep breath and turns his head to glare at Harry who has a lazy smirk on his face. His knuckles turn white from gripping the wheel so hard so he let's go and reaches out to twist the volume up higher. Harry isn't taking it though and grabs his phone from the cup holder to pause the music completely.

"Oh wait, am I not supposed to call you that outside of the bedroom? I forgot," Harry says quietly, leaning over to place his mouth up to Louis' ear.

"Shit," Louis groans. He tries to subtly reach down and fix his dick that's slowly getting hard, but Harry sees and smirks.

He pulls back from Louis' ear to unbuckle his seat belt just as Louis exits onto the interstate, then reaches over to place his hand on the older boy's crotch. Louis is placing bets in his mind on what finger is going to break first from the right grip he has on the steering wheel at the moment.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?" Harry asks sweetly. Louis shakes his head stiffly, trying to keep his composure for as long as possible. "If I suck your dick will you tell me?"

Louis doesn't respond to the question because on one hand he's aching for Harry's plush lips on his cock but on the other he doesn't want to ruin the surprise within the first half hour of the drive. When the hand on his lap starts pushing down and rubbing though, he realizes that he doesn't have much say in what happens anyways.

After a minute of Harry's hand rubbing his dick through two layers of clothing Louis can't handle it anymore and starts rocking his hips upwards into his palm to gain more friction.

"Just suck me already, God," Louis breathes out, his voice breaking once in the middle of the sentence.

"I'm not God, I'm just Harry," the boy says teasingly before finally unzipping Louis' jeans and ordering him to lift his hips up to pull them further down his thighs.

The outline of Louis' dick through his tight boxers is prominent and Harry takes advantage of that by leaning over and tracing his lips along it on the fabric. He mouths at it and takes extra time kissing at the head, making Louis moan in pleasure.

"Quit teasing," Louis says gruffly and Harry waits a few seconds until he stops and obeys, lifting his head up to get a grip on the boxers and pull them down just enough to let Louis' cock free.

"You have a pretty cock, daddy," Harry says softly.

He licks his hand then grabs it and strokes up and down a few times. Louis is just about to complain about the teasing again when Harry dips his head down and kisses the tip, sticking his tongue out to poke at the slit.

He does that for a while, kissing up and down Louis' dick and focusing on sucking the head until Louis takes one hand off of the wheel and places it in Harry's hair, gripping hard and pushing down. The car surges forward for a second when Harry takes Louis all the way into his mouth and there’s a honk from somewhere around them but Louis can’t be bothered to react to it with what he’s got going on just below the steering wheel.

“God that feels so good,” Louis moans as Harry starts moving his lips up and down, tracing his tongue in a line along the prominent bottom vein.

It’s hard to drive when someone’s sucking your dick, Louis thinks to himself, barely managing to stay a steady speed or keep the car from swerving off the side of the road. He tried to focus on the trees which helped some when Harry sucked him deep enough to touch the back of his throat, but then he caught glimpse of someone in a car beside him and nearly came from knowing that someone in a car higher than his could easily look down and see Harry bobbing his head in Louis’ lap.

After a minute a song Louis recognizes to be Jake Bugg’s comes on and he groans, but not in pleasure this time. Harry must catch on to the fact that Louis can’t stand the singer and does something completely unexpected.

He starts bobbing his head to the beat of the song, smirking as much as he can with a cock stuffed in his mouth. Louis has to give it to Harry though and admit that it makes the song more enjoyable.

After a minute of that, Harry pulls back and focuses on the tip again, sucking gently at it and swirling his tongue around it.

Louis is so close that he’s breathing heavily and starting to sweat, so he tugs on Harry’s hair before pushing his head down, hearing the younger boy sputter a little at the sudden intrusion.

“Gonna come, baby,” Louis warns. Harry takes it as an opportunity to go faster and deeper, and soon enough Louis is right on the edge.

“Fuck, pull up I’m really- _ah, shit_ ,” he groans as his orgasm takes over.

Harry continues moving his head  for a second longer then pulls up and cups his hands around Louis’ dick to prevent a large mess since they’re going to be in the car for at least another hour or so.

Louis somehow keeps his eyes open but let’s his jaw hang low and moans as his cock spurts out hot whiteness and throbs. He may press down or let up on the gas pedal, but his mind isn’t processing what’s happening around him good enough to realize if he does or not. One thing he knows for sure is that he’s gripping Harry’s hair tightly between his fingers because the boy let’s out a quiet whimper at the feel of it.

When his orgasm has passed, he let’s go of Harry’s hair and Harry sits up straight in his seat, his back popping from the uncomfortable position it was forced to be in for so long. He lifts his hand up to his mouth and sticks his tongue out, licking his palm and swallowing every last drop of Louis’ cum that was covering it.

It’s silent for a moment as Louis reaches down to pull his boxers and pants back up. Driving is somewhat difficult to do with one hand while he has to lift his hips up and use the other to fix his clothing, but it’s nowhere near as hard as what Louis’s just experienced in the past few minutes.

When he’s finally situated and calmed down, Harry speaks up from the passenger side. “Where are we going?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, shaking his head, “and you say _I’m_ the little shit.”

“You’re still a bigger little shit than me, though,” Harry replies matter-of-factly. “And hey, that’s a good oxymoron and irony since you’re actually smaller than me.”

“You just sucked me off and now you’re already going to start knocking on me? What manners you have, Styles,” Louis smirks.

“About that; thanks for not crashing. I seriously don’t know how you managed to sit there and not swerve off into a ditch or slam into the back of another car.”

Louis shrugs and replies cockily, “I’ve never even had practice before. I’m just amazing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says, waving a hand around at Louis.

He turns and rests his head on the window, looking out at the scenery they drive by. All around them there’s fields and in the distance to one side you can see a range of mountains dipping and rising along the Earth.

The scenery is really the only thing that keeps him entertained when Harry falls asleep a little while later, leaving him by himself on the journey. Even the sun’s hiding behind clouds which makes things even worse because Louis was enjoying glancing over at Harry and admiring the way the sun traced all of his features from his curls down to his Adam’s apple.

Louis is so busy being distraught by the fact that he’s left alone now that he doesn’t even realize that the sun isn’t just hiding behind passing fluffy clouds, but behind dark stormy clouds, heavy and ready to pour upon whatever has the misfortune of getting stuck beneath it.

-

An hour later - after Louis manages to parallel park after almost hitting two children and the car behind him - Louis reaches over to wake up Harry and tell him that they’re finally here. He nudges Harry’s shoulder a few times then, when he doesn’t wake up, he moves on to slapping him hard on his forearm, getting a loud grunt and a hand trying to wave him off.

“Wake up Sleeping Beauty, we’re here,” Louis sing-songs.

Harry sighs but slowly opens his eyes and sits up, stretching his arms and legs forward as far as he can in the small car. When he looks over at Louis, his eyes immediately shift to look out the window behind his head where there’s a ferris wheel and lights and people dotting around laughing.

“A fair!” Harry exclaims like a child, smiling wide as he says it. Louis was hoping for that kind of reaction.

“Yes, now let’s get our asses out of the car before the lines get too long,” Louis says.

They get out of the car and walk across the street to get to the main entrance of the fair, or maybe it’s a carnival since it isn’t very large and only has a handful of rides and booths spread across the empty lot.

Once their wristbands are wrapped tight around their wrists, they head off in search for their first ride of the day. Louis suggests the ferris wheel, but Harry says they’ve got to do that last because it’s the most special part of the day. He doesn’t get what it means, but Louis goes along with it anyways.

They’re about to get in line for the tilt-a-whirl when Harry pulls Louis’ hand back and points somewhere a few meters away. When he looks over, Louis isn’t that surprised to see a white tent with racks of scarves sitting underneath it.

Harry looks at him with a pout and wide eyes and Louis can’t help but agree to be dragged over to it while Harry shops around

“Lou, which one compliments my complexion better?” Harry asks, holding a pink one with fringe on one side of his head and a deeply colored floral one on the other. Louis looks up from where he’s scrolling on his phone to examine each of them.

“This is a really tough decision, but I’m going with the pink one,” Louis says, snapping a finger and pointing at it. “Only because it matches your outfit though, because I know you’re going to want to wear it right now.”

Harry lets out a loud cackle and throws a hand over his mouth as if to stuff it back in before showing off his dimple and turning around to set the floral scarf back on it’s original rack. He traces his fingers over a few more, contemplating whether or not to buy them, but ends up checking out with just the pink one in his hand. He walks back over to Louis once he’s tied it around his head and announces that he’s ready to go on the ride now.

“Took you long enough, curly,” Louis laughs. He reaches up to fix a stray curl and let’s his hand linger on Harry’s face before coughing and grabbing the boy’s hand again.

None of the lines for the rides are that long, probably because the sky is getting darker every passing minute. Harry and Louis don’t care though and skip from ride to ride, only taking short breaks in between to sit down and let their stomachs settle; throwing up on a date doesn’t seem like the most pleasurable thing that could happen.

It’s when they’re waiting for the carousel that the first drop of rain falls onto the tip of Louis’ nose making him cross his eyes to see what it was. One must fall on Harry too because when Louis looks up, he’s got his face scrunched and swats a hand his eye to wipe it off.

“It’s starting to rain,” Harry says, looking up at the sky and pouting.

“Thank you captain obvious,” Louis replies, bumping Harry with his shoulder playfully.

“I haven’t been called captain obvious since third grade,” Harry says. “Maybe even second.”

“Well if you’re implying that I’m six years old, then just know that you’re a major pedophile,” Louis informed him.

He doesn’t hear Harry’s reply because the man running the ride opens the gate and Louis bursts through it, running straight for the dragon on the outer ring of the carousel. Harry follows shortly after him, taking time walking onto the platform so he doesn’t trip over his long legs.

He chooses the giraffe beside Louis and the sight of him on it makes Louis choke on laughter. The animal is smaller than the one Louis is on since it’s on the inside of the ride, and when Harry sits on it his knees come up to the center of his torso meanwhile Louis sits fine on the dragon, his legs hanging over the sides and fitting nicely into the foot holes provided below.

“A mother giraffe riding her baby, what a sight,” Louis gets out through his cackles. He reaches down into his pocket and pulls out his phone to snap a picture of how ridiculous his boyfriend looks right now.

“Oh shut up,” Harry says. “Who are you to talk when you’re a twenty two year old that fits perfectly on a children’s ride?”

“Touché,” Louis says. narrowing his eyes at Harry.

When the ride is over, Harry awkwardly untangles himself from the giraffe and Louis hops down off the side of the dragon. They walk out from the covering of the carousel and out of the gate into the open area where the rain is falling at a more constant rate, but still nothing enough to cause it to be considered anything more than a light drizzle. Harry doesn’t seemed bothered at all by the drops, but Louis is a little on edge because of the picnic he still has planned for later. He makes a mental note to ask Zayn about that.

Soon, Harry complains that he’s hungry so they find the nearest booth and buy a funnel cake to share. As they walk away from the food truck Louis longingly looks back at the pronto pup he decided not to get since Harry seemed really excited about the sharing idea.

“We need to do the ferris wheel before they close the rides!” Harry says with half worry and half excitement hidden within his voice. Louis mumbles an agreement, his mouth full of powder and cake at the moment.

Luckily there’s only a few people in line for it so they’re definitely going to get a chance to ride it  which seems to make Harry a lot calmer.

When it’s their turn to get on, Louis is still holding half a plate full of funnel cake but the guy doesn’t try to stop him from bringing it in the basket so Louis shrugs and carefully steps in, sitting beside Harry and raising the plate up so the safety bar can be lowered on their laps.

There’s a plastic umbrella above the basket keeping the rain off of them, so they continue to pick at the cake as the ride starts slowly moving around. They travel four full times around before the wheel slows down and eventually comes to a stop, leaving them - as cliche as it may be - stuck right at the very top.

After a few minutes of idle chat and comments about the view they still haven’t moved from the spot, and Louis begins to think it might be something more than the ride being stopped to let passengers off.

“Fuck, I think we’re stuck,” Louis groaned, looking over at Harry who’s got powder all around his mouth.

He swallows before replying, “It’s romantic, don’t you think?”

“Well, it’s worrying but it is pretty romantic,” Louis chuckles.

“We’re supposed to kiss, I think,” Harry hums, turning to Louis with his signature frog face.

“I don’t know if I want to kiss you,” Louis says as he scrunches his face up in mock disgust, “You’ve got quite a bit of powder on your mouth.”

“Oh you know you love it,” Harry teases. He leans in closer and grins cheesily, watching Louis roll his eyes.

“If you’re going to kiss me just do it already, Santa Claus.”

And Harry does just that.

Louis leans forward to get closer to Harry until their lips are touching, pressed tightly against each other. There’s powder on the curly haired boy’s lip and Louis licks them to get it off, making Harry laugh lightly in response.

It doesn’t get heated at all, just stays as a simple kiss, their lips moving softly against one another’s, biting and licking every now and then to make it more interesting. Louis moves the hand that isn’t holding onto the plate up to Harry’s head and pushes his fingers up under the scarf, pulling Harry’s face closer into his.

It’s almost like something you’d see straight out of a movie; a kiss on top of a ferris wheel as rain falls all around. Of course, it might not be two guys, but that’s sadly just how society is these days, choosing to watch a girl and guy kiss the same way repeatedly instead of two boys locking powder covered lips.

The butterflies in Louis’ stomach return and he starts to pull back, not wanting them to think they can have a party or anything of the sorts. Thinking about the butterflies makes him think of Harry’s tattoo though, which inevitably makes Louis surge forward again, giving the creatures a signed confirmation that they’re allowed to do whatever the hell they want to each other within Louis.

Finally Harry is the one who pulls back though, licking his lips as soon as he’s free to do so. The powder is mostly gone from them and the taste is coincidentally stuck on Louis’ tongue.

As if someone had this moment planned out, the ride starts moving again and they’re being lowered back to the ground (in a physical and mental way, Louis firgures).

When they’ve stopped at the bottom, the guy running the ride tells them that the carnival is going to be closed for the rest of the day due to safety hazards because of the rain. It’s a disappointment to Louis and Harry both, but mainly Louis because he’s going to have to stall and think of a new plan for dinner since their day’s been cut short and thrown off course.

He pulls out his phone when they’re back in the car and sends a quick message to Zayn.

_To **zayazyayananynzya** : it’s raining so we had to leave the carnival early but now i don’t know what i’m supposed to do about the picnic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

He always tells himself to change Zayn’s contact name, but he never ends up doing it because the back story behind it brings back too many good memories. Ones that have to do with pot brownies and a game of strip scrabble.

_From **zayazyayananynzya** : got u covered. :) owe me summ money though_

_From **zayn calls him daddy** : louuuuuiiiiisssssssssssss we got u and h rservations at the grove for 7_

So him and Harry are going out to eat, then. Not exactly what he was hoping for, but hopefully this place is good.

_To **zayn calls him daddy** : thanks_

To **zayazyayananynzya** : whatever and can we wear regular clothes ?

From **zayazyayananynzya** : doesn’t matter people won’t see you anyways! x

He would reply to that but it doesn’t seem like something he wants to delve deeper into, so he shuts of his phone deciding to leave it alone.

The curly haired boy in the passenger seat is almost completely forgotten in Louis’ racing mind until he speaks up.

“We going to sit here the rest of the day, because I think my butt might get sore if we do that,” Harry half teases and half complains in a way that only he’s capable of.

“Actually we have reservations at..” Louis has to pause for a second, the name of the restaurant on the tip of his tongue. “The Grove!”

“That sounds a bit fancy and we aren’t really dressed to go somewhere any higher ranked than two stars,” Harry notes, pointing at his jean shorts and Louis’ ripped up top.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Louis says with a smile. He’s just hoping that Harry can’t see the panic hidden behind the thin layer of reassurance in his eyes.

-

“Last name?” the middle-aged hostess asks. She’s eyeing down their outfits with a small grimace on her face that she doesn’t even try to conceal.

“Uh, Tomlinson I think,” Louis replies, awkwardly shifting from heel to heel. The lady glances up at him again before she goes to find it in the computer.

“You _think_?”

“Hey, you need-” Louis starts to lash out, but luckily Harry pinches his side causing him to shut his mouth.

“Yes, we have reservations under Tomlinson, so could you please find our names and have us directed to our table already?” Somehow Harry manages to say exactly what Louis was going to, but without curse words, rude comments, or any other various snippy remarks.

The hostess continues to eye him before slowly scrolling through the names on the screen and finding theirs. She beckons over a younger girl and hands her two menus, murmuring something that Louis can’t hear, although he thinks he picks up ‘private’ and ‘top’.

The girl smiles at them and tells them to follow her, and as they do Louis notices that they completely pass by the dining area and are lead to a stairwell. She glances back to make sure they’re following before waving them forward and quickly climbing up the steps.

Louis doesn’t know what he was expecting exactly, but this definitely wasn’t it. The stairs lead out to the roof where there’s a plastic see-through covering set above the ground blocking the rain and christmas lights strung across it in a horizontal pattern. There’s one table sitting in the middle of the space draped in a white cloth with a candle directly in the center. He turns back to look at Harry and the boy seems as awed as he is, looking around at the area and focusing for a moment just at the lights above their heads.

The waitress guides them to the table and hands them two menus after they’ve sat down in the cushioned chairs. She asks what they’d like to drink and Louis orders a water while Harry chooses strawberry lemonade.

“I really didn’t know what to expect when they- _I_ made the reservation, but this is incredible.” Louis nearly let’s it slip that he didn’t plan this and wants to slap himself in the face.

“I can’t believe you did this, Lou,” Harry gushes. “Just wish you would’ve told me to bring a change of clothes or something.”

“Oh hush up, nobody gave us a second glance except that cranky old lady at the front.”

“She was only like thirty, you know,” Harry points out, opening the menu to decide what he wants.

“Everyone older than me is considered an old man or old lady,” Louis shrugs, opening his menu also.

“That’d mean you’re an old man to me then,” Harry says. “I should call you that instead of da-”

“Don’t say it, Styles, or I’ll bite your tongue off,” Louis says to him with warning eyes.

It doesn’t have much effect though as Harry just let’s out a cackle similar to the one earlier and continues looking for a dish.

By the time the waitress comes back with their drinks they’ve decided what they want; Louis goes with Chicken Alfredo and Harry chooses classic spaghetti and meatballs, also known as the one dish you should never order on a date.

“So why did you make me skip work to spend the day together, hm?” Harry asks, taking a sip of his lemonade with his pinkie held up- on purpose or subconsciously Lois can’t tell.

“Oh yeah,” Louis says, remembering why he did plan this day. “I got told last week that I’m going to have my own mini collection for Vans and my friend Aiden said I needed to be inspired by something I’m passionate about or care about or whatever, so I decided I’m _‘passionate’_ about you and planned this day so that we could have a chance to bond and talk and do fun coupley stuff together to inspire things to put into my new designs.”

He takes a deep breath after that long ramble and flushes, realizing that Harry probably just wanted a simple five word answer. When he looks up though Harry doesn’t seem at all disgruntled by the long statement, but has a shocked look on his face.

“So you’re getting your own collection - which is amazing, just so you know - and you wanted _me_ to be your inspiration?” he asks, sounding completely in awe by it.

Louis thinks about it for a second and figures that yeah, that’s basically what happened just simplified down to own sentence.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Louis responds, swirling the ice in his drink around with his straw.

“You don’t even realize how cute that is, do you,” Harry says with a teasing tone, but as more of a statement than a question.

Louis sucks his lips in and scrunches his eyebrows together, looking up at Harry because he really doesn’t understand why it’s so special that Harry means enough to him to be an inspiration.

“Well, maybe it’s not that special and I’m just over reacting, but it seems like that’s a way of, I don’t know, showing that you care about me,” Harry says. It’s his turn for his cheeks to tint red now. “I think I’m stretching it though.”

“No, no you aren’t stretching it at all,” Louis is quick to confirm. “I do care about you a lot. Like, a _whole lot_. I just didn’t realize that by making you my inspiration it’d also have the underlying meaning that..”

He pauses and chokes on his own tongue at what words almost came out of his mouth. It’s the phrase he’s been talking to Zayn about since the day he met Harry, the one he says to his mom and little sisters when he visits them. The words hold more meaning than ones that should be thrown casually into a conversation for their first time said. So he waits, hoping the courage he needs rushes into him like the butterflies usually do.

“Louis, you ok?” Harry asks cautiously across from him. It seems like the only encouragement he needed was the boy’s voice though and now he’s blurting out what he’s wanted to say for the past month a half.

“I love you, Harry.”

The second after he says it he internally sighs in relief, the feeling of the words in the air the same as a weight being lifted from his whole body. He sits for a second, pausing the swirling motion in his drink before he takes a chance and looks up at Harry.

The boy across from his has the biggest smile on his face that Louis’ ever seen, both of his dimples showing and his mouth cocked sideways in the way it only does when he’s genuinely happy. Harry only stays quiet for a few more seconds before he’s pushing his chair back and walking around the table to Louis.

He pulls the older boy up from his chair and as soon as they’re at a near even height he grabs Louis’ face in his hands and kisses him like never before.

All the other times mean nothing compared to this, even the one earlier on top of the ferris wheel where Louis felt like he was about to fly into heaven. Right now he can literally feel the passion coming through Harry’s lips even before he hears the mumbled words, “I love you too, Louis.”

When they do reach his ears though, something snaps inside of him and he pulls back from the kiss to just wrap his arms around Harry’s torso tightly. The taller boy follows suit, wrapping himself around Louis even if he doesn’t understand why.

“No one’s ever said I love you back,” Louis whispers into Harry’s neck and in that moment he feels the last feather lifted from his chest.

He’s never told anyone, even Zayn, about the times he’s said I love you to his boyfriends and they just stayed quiet or changed the subject. No one ever knew anything more than what Louis made up, always things like “We just agreed it wasn’t working out.” or “It didn’t seem like it was going anywhere.”

Harry knows now and he hold Louis tighter in his long arms, pulling him into his chest and kissing the top of his head.

“I love you, I promise,” Harry whispers. “I love you, even though it seems ridiculous since we’ve only known each other for about two months. I love you.”

It’s enough to make Louis tear up, his eyes wetting the fabric covering Harry’s shoulder. They eventually release each other and Harry wipes Louis’ eyes with his thumb before moving back to sit in his seat.

When their food comes just a minute later, the clouds have parted enough to let the sun seep through the clear covering. The rays dance across Harry’s face like they did in the car earlier and Louis admires him every few seconds in between taking bites or sipping his drink. He even admires the way Harry pouts when he drops a sauce-covered meatball down his shirt and into his lap.

He knows he got lucky; lucky with such great friends, lucky with such a great job, but most importantly, lucky with the most beautiful and amazing boyfriend in the world.

Hopefully it never has to change.

-

_(Two years later on their annual trip to the coast, Louis makes rooftop reservations at The Grove. This time though, instead of jean shorts and bright Nike shoes, they’ve both got on their best button ups and, for Louis, a sleek black blazer._

_Halfway through their dinner, Harry asks Louis if he’s hot in the jacket and suggests he take it off. Instead, though, Louis reaches into an inside pocket to pull out a velvet box before pushing back his chair and dropping to one knee in front of Harry._

_“Two years ago, we said I love you to each other for the first time in the middle of the pouring rain, me with my ripped shirt and you in the headband you asked me to choose,” he starts, glancing up at Harry to see him cover his mouth with his hand. “Now here we are today, all grown up and in our nicest clothing with the sun setting around us, and I have something to ask..”_

_He flips open the box to reveal a silver band, the inside engraved with ‘L & H’._

_“I love you just as much and even more than I did that day, and I know I’m going to love you for centuries to come. So, Harry Edward Styles, will you marry me?”_

_Harry can barely choke out a yes before he starts crying, holding a shaky hand out so that Louis can slide the band onto his finger._

_This time, Louis is the one who pulls Harry up from his seat and kisses him with all of his might, pouring every last breath and drop of his soul into it._

_Finally, Louis knows for sure that it’s going to stay this way forever.)_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I REALLY CANT BELIEVE I WROTE SOMETHING THIS LONG
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it though and if you want to leave a comment or kudos, that'd be awesome :o)
> 
> twitter: @daddyhair  
> tumblr: louwie


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